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stvnbrs
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join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC

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stvnbrs

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[D3] 1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements


Lidless Wall / The Tormentor

Fire Walkers / Pox Faulds

Skycutter / Maximus

Multiple Items
source

"Soon after we released Diablo III, many of you commented on Legendary items. Most of those comments were fairly harsh, but they were also dead-on accurate. In many ways the Legendary items that we released with the game were just Rares with flavor text. You called us on it, and we’ve listened.

Since then I've been working hard with the team to give Legendary items some of the flavor and feeling that they deserve. With patch 1.0.4 just around the corner, and the new Legendary items coming in that patch, I wanted to share some of the changes with you here today.

Let's talk about the biggest complaints we heard from you all, along with some we had from our team, and look at what we've managed to do to address them.

They Should Feel Unique
Many of you commented, rightly, that the Legendary items in the game didn’t feel unique enough. Something that Diablo II did really well was to create some very memorable items, and they were called “Uniques.” While we call them Legendaries now, the word “unique” was something we tried to keep in mind when making these changes. The rarity of Legendary items combined with their color means that when they drop you should feel like you’re getting something special, something that isn’t just another sword. A truly legendary item should have history behind it, something that you can imagine a powerful wizard imbuing with special magics from within the depths of his musty library.

Part of that feeling comes when you equip the item, and you see that it has special, custom artwork that sets it apart from every other item in the game. The artists already nailed this part of it, but with 1.0.4 they’ve gone the extra mile to ensure these items show off, visually, how truly epic they are. But we’ll cover that in a bit.

On my end, the design end, to get the uniqueness into Legendary items, we've added custom effects to over 50 of them. Here are just a few:

SHIELD: You have a chance to be shielded when hit by enemiesWe're letting players exact some revenge on rare and Champion and Rare packs by giving players monster affixes through Legendary items. This is just one example.
STAFF:31% chance to charm enemies when you hit them.eminiscent of the Enchantress ability, this lets you turn enemies against each other.
BOOTS: Burn the ground you walk on.Aside from looking really cool as it leaves a trail of fire behind you, this lets you create some interesting traps.
LEGS: These pants occasionally make you stink.There's some just-for-fun stuff too. Everyone wants to be just like Ghom! These pants make you “stinky”, complete with debuff and gas cloud effect -- you can even spread this effect to friendly players.

Old
Skycutter Legendary Sword (1-Hand)
577.5 Dps
266-559 Damage
1.40 Attacks per Second
201-408 Holy Damage
32 Intelligence
139 Vitality
7% Damage to Demons
Critical Hit Damage Increased by 52%
10 Maximum Arcane Power (Wizard Only)

New
Skycutter Legendary Sword (1-Hand)
853 Dps
364-854 Damage
1.40 Attacks per Second
280-660 Holy Damage
117 Intelligence
8% Damage to Demons
Critical Hit Damage Increased by 54%
Chance to summon angelic assistance when attacking
Socket

A giant column of light shoots down, summoning an Angel to fight by your side. 'Nuff said.


Old
Maximus Legendary Two-Handed Sword (2-Hand)
700.2 Dps
418-855 Damage
1.10 Attacks per Second
149-424 Fire Damage
225 Vitality
56 Resistance to All Elements
7% Damage to Demons
5.80% of Damage Dealt is Converted to Life

New
Maximus Legendary Two-Handed Sword (2-Hand)
1221.3 Dps
803-1417 Damage
1.10 Attacks per Second
272-628 Fire Damage
42% Damage
340 Strength
100 Dexterity
150 Vitality
14% Damage to Demons
Critical Hit Damage Increased by 193%
Chance to summon a Demonic Slave when attacking.
This sword has a chance to summon a demon to fight with you -- with a twist. This demon has the Fire Chains affix, and the other end is attached to your character. Mwahaha!


Promote Build Diversity
Because Legendary items are unique, we can do some fun stuff with them that we can't really do with other types of items. One of the main goals of Diablo III and the skill/rune system is providing a huge amount of character customization. With Legendary items we can help support those goals.

In 1.0.4 we've added a number of items that really fit into a niche skill kit. This can help people to branch out into less common builds by seeing this item and thinking, heck, why not give it a try? They may not have the highest DPS stats in the game, but they can help you play your class in new and interesting ways.

SPEAR: Increases Ancient Spear Damage by 46%; Increases Weapon Throw Damage by 45%Some people want to try out a ranged barb. We think that's awesome. Here you go.
WAND: Increases Spectral Blade Damage by 38%The melee wizard concept is pretty popular, and we think this wand will be too.
MOJO: Reduces cooldown of summon Zombie Dogs by 15 seconds; Reduces cooldown of Gargantuan by 18 seconds.Certainly not an uncommon build, but this is a great item for any pet-focused witch doctors, and with the pet buffs also coming in 1.0.4 we think it’s going to be very desirable.
stvnbrs

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stvnbrs

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Goldskin
 

Frostburn Gauntlets
 

Buriza-do Kyanon
 
Click for full size
Skorn
Provide Interesting Choices
With great power comes great responsibility. Some affixes in the game seem like they'd be too unbalanced if we let them stack too high. So how do we make sure we can go higher?

Goldskin is a good example. 100% gold find on it, plus monsters have a chance to drop gold when you hit them. Not too bad, right? But the tradeoff is it can’t roll core stats. We instead follow the flavor of the item, and being a skin of gold (!), provide you with some additional resistances and mitigation. It’s going to create some interesting choices on how you can make this item work for you. You have to find other ways to get the stats that you really need if you really want all that sweet, sweet gold. Balancing your items out like this can provide some fun and interesting challenges.

Honoring Our Ancestors
We brought a lot of items back from the Diablo franchise for Diablo III, but in many cases all we really did was bring back their name. I don't think we did a great job initially of bringing back the way that they helped you play the game. We've done a pass on all the "ancestor" Legendaries to make sure they remain as true to their name as we could make them, and in some cases we've made them even better.

New Frosties feel a lot more like old Frosties, with big bonuses to Cold Damage and Cold skills.

Buriza-do Kyanon: 74% chance for ranged projectiles to pierce enemies. Honoring the original by giving all projectile attacks a chance to pierce through the target's defenses.


They Feel Powerful
We used to reduce the value of certain affixes on Legendary items because we were concerned that having fixed affixes would make them unbalanced. What it actually did was make those items kind of crappy. For example, if the item's level (ilvl) was 50, the first affix would always roll at 50, then the next would roll at 47, and the next would roll at 43. This was done to offset the power of fixed affixes in a random world, but we've learned it's not necessary, and Legendary items being powerful is OK. So lesson learned, we no longer reduce the value of any of the fixed affixes on Legendary items. For example, if an ilvl 50 Legendary item had Strength as one of its fixed affixes, previously it may have rolled a range that you would have seen on a level 45 item, making it seem really underpowered, but now it will always roll within the range of a level 50 affix.

In addition, Legendary items used to cap out at ilvl 62, making it near impossible to find a weapon that had strong DPS. No more. We’ve promoted a LOT of the new Legendaries so that they will roll at ilvl 63, giving them access to the highest possible affix rolls that are in the game.

We're also working on some changes for 1.0.4 to make two-handers better in general, and this will affect two-handed Legendary items as well.

see Skorn image above for example

Everything Else
That probably about covers it for the major points we're hitting with Legendary items in 1.0.4, but there's a few extra details on how they’re going to work once the patch hits we want to make sure everyone is prepared for.

Going Forward -As a reminder, these changes will only affect Legendary items that drop after the release of patch 1.0.4. This includes items that haven’t been identified yet (as items are rolled when they drop). With the extensive changes being made we can’t exactly translate old Legendary items to new. What might have been a decent item could become worse if we re-roll it, and vice-versa.
Not Everything is Changing! - Sometimes a Legendary just being really powerful is enough, and some Legendary items are already really good. Helm of Command, for example, won’t be changing in 1.0.4.
What About Sets? - It’s worth clarifying that green Set items are Legendary items (just with a set bonus) and so the above philosophy applies to them as well. Some set bonuses are changing, they’re becoming more powerful, and a lot of them are having their base ilvl increased to 63.
New Set Names - As set bonuses won’t interact between pre-1.0.4 and post-1.0.4 sets, the new Sets will have new names, as well as new individual pieces, to prevent confusion.
Crafted Legendaries - f you currently have a crafting plan for a Legendary item, and if we change the item that you’re able to craft in any way, you will NOT have to get a new crafting plan for that item. If you craft something right after 1.0.4 comes out you’ll get the new item.

We thank you for your continued feedback, and look forward to seeing how the new Legendaries treat you in 1.0.4 and beyond. Look out for additional 1.0.4 info blogs as we near the patch release.

One More Thing...
I’m really proud of how the entire team came together to make these changes -- and it truly was a team-wide effort. When we were first discussing buffing Legendaries and making them cooler, a bunch of the artists got really excited and went out of their way to make them a whole lot sexier. Here's a sneak peek at just a few of the changes they're making to the items, as well as some of their proc powers.

Please enjoy!
stvnbrs

stvnbrs

Premium Member

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· embedded

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious to stvnbrs

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to stvnbrs
Hell yea!

Koil
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
Irmo, SC

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Koil to stvnbrs

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to stvnbrs
The changes do look pretty interesting...I'll be checking it out.

Still waiting to hear something about the AH, though...

Blue post:
quote:
The video shows only a small glimpse into just some of the visual upgrades for Legendaries and a small smattering of luscious possible procs.

Just wait until you see all of the other proc effects we’re adding, too.

Also, make sure to check out the 1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements developer blog for more details on the full spectrum of improvements ahead for Legendaries.
quote:
The video on Legendary Items and 1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements developer blog we posted covered but a small portion of all the procs being added. In many cases we chose ones that were easily recognizable for the video, but there are more, oh yes, there are more... >: ) …we’re currently on target to have at least 50, in fact!

dohdoh
@sbcglobal.net

dohdoh

Anon

diablo 3 is terrible... they cannot fix it. they should have made another expansion for diablo 2 that added new character classes / items and other stuff.. and we'd get to keep all our old items / characters.

diablo 3 = a short pain in the ass story.

diablo 2 = Level 99 and infinite pvp fun, more class flexibility. diablo 3 is cookie cutter as it can get.

stvnbrs
Premium Member
join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC

stvnbrs

Premium Member

I believe that Blizzard was/is trying to keep the leveling to 99 as part of the expansion. If Blizzard sticks with changing e right things, there is a large potential for a truly great game. With Torchlight 2 coming out next month, hopefully Blizzard will realize they are no longer best by default.

Koil
Premium Member
join:2002-09-10
Irmo, SC

Koil to dohdoh

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to dohdoh
said by dohdoh :

diablo 3 is terrible... they cannot fix it. they should have made another expansion for diablo 2 that added new character classes / items and other stuff.. and we'd get to keep all our old items / characters.

diablo 3 = a short pain in the ass story.

diablo 2 = Level 99 and infinite pvp fun, more class flexibility. diablo 3 is cookie cutter as it can get.

I honestly don't remember, and didn't play it that deeply, but was D2 perfect at launch? Weren't there several xpacs that got it to where it was?

You can not like it, but to compare D3 (early in life) to a fully expanded, fleshed out, bug cleared and play balanced D2 (which took time that D3 hasn't had) isn't a fair equation.

stvnbrs
Premium Member
join:2009-03-17
Cary, NC

stvnbrs

Premium Member

said by Koil:

Weren't there several xpacs that got it to where it was?

1 expansion Lord of Destruction, still several patches. I figure that Blizz is planning 2 expansions for this game, breaking up content that could easily contribute as one great expac to 2 separate, smaller ones for the same price. The difference this time around is TL2 which is more of a D2 successor than D3 is currently.

The ability to level to 99
Multiplayer (possibly up to 6 players)
Online and offline mode (with possible private server capability)
Modding
Skill and attribute points
Made by ex-Blizzard North employees who made D2 and WoW BC
Dev kit to design your own levels and share
PvP is not thought about for balance (devs believe you should be able to kill things and feel OP.)
No AH.

Pretty much most of the features that D3 should have adopted.

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious to Koil

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to Koil
Yea, 1 xpack but a lot of big patches, namely 1.10 in 2004/2005.

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

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puppy to stvnbrs

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to stvnbrs
Saviouss!! You are back!!

That firewalker... 300 dex? holy...

and 31% chance to charm monster on that first staff... so I spam a few blizzards and watch them kill each other?

(Or they are all charmed and we just all sit there...)

EDIT: Are these changes applied to existing items? If so I need to stock up!

EDIT2: I learned to read: Going Forward -As a reminder, these changes will only affect Legendary items that drop after the release of patch 1.0.4.

Jobbie
Keep It Simple
Premium Member
join:2010-08-24
Mexico

Jobbie

Premium Member

Torchlight 2

Soom (tm)

Mentat
Premium Member
join:2001-02-25
Houston, TX

Mentat to stvnbrs

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to stvnbrs
Here's my take on it: »mmoqq.com/?p=2455
said by some super insightful dude :
The cynic in me wonders how they will drop post 1.0.4, as the clamoring for powerful uniques has been building since release. My Jaywilson-sense is spiking off the chart and I can see a bleak future before us, fellow nerds; I see a raising of the $250 limit for sales on the RMAH to $500 or even $1000. Demand for the uber uniques will be all-encompassing and with the suspected duping going on, people are gonna be stackin’ paper.

Enjoy your new legendary items that Blizzard has so happily provided for you…if you ever get one to drop, that is.

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious to puppy

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I was never gone, I lurk always in the shadowssss

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

puppy to Mentat

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to Mentat
said by Mentat:

Enjoy your new legendary items that Blizzard has so happily provided for you…if you ever get one to drop, that is.

If I get one I can fund my gaming needs for years!!

Edit: I make good income but I can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a single item or even a whole set. When I posted a pic about a wizard with 100k dps a while back, I imagined what if I won the lottery and got the same set. So I would mow everything down, but then what? Not much fun just farming for your alts.

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious

Premium Member

that's what Diablo has always been, gearing your next build idea!

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

puppy to stvnbrs

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to stvnbrs
Just noticed the 304 dex on the new Skorn axe. The "Boom" comment is funny to me ^_^

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious

Premium Member

Monks I guess?

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

puppy

Member

God where is my brain today!

I would level a monk just for that axe...

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious

Premium Member

The bleed proc is sweet as hell. Im really excited to see the skill changes.

My ice wizard wants frostburns and is praying for a venom hydra like buff to frost hydra.

Blizzard, comet frost hydra ftw!!

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

puppy

Member

Yes I would love it if all the hydras are buffed to where venom is, but differently. Hope they don't nerf venom though...

Maybe frost hydra can spit frozen orbs like D2, that would rock. I still have that pzzzztt sound in my head.

Savious
Premium Member
join:2012-03-05
Billings, MT

Savious

Premium Member

The damage is good, I hate the range on it. So he's spammed and eats up arcane power.

Draiman
Let me see those devil horns in the sky
join:2012-06-01
Kill Devil Hills, NC

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said by Savious:

The bleed proc is sweet as hell. Im really excited to see the skill changes.

My ice wizard wants frostburns and is praying for a venom hydra like buff to frost hydra.

Blizzard, comet frost hydra ftw!!

They increased the range on frost hydra. Venom will remain the #1 single target hydra and lightning #1 for moving targets.
»Re: [D3] Patch 1.0.4 preview info

puppy
join:2010-01-28
San Diego, CA

puppy

Member

I had a faint (lottery-ish) hope that they would make the molten hydra drop meteors, frost do orbs/blizzard, etc. Just upping the damage is blah but I guess safest route to go for now.