Diablo III Season 18 starts on Switch next week, latest patch notes

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Switch

Blizzard will be kicking off Season 18 in Diablo III next week across all platforms, the company has announced. It will be going live for Switch on August 23 alongside a new patch.

While Season 18 is live, players will benefit from the Power of the Triune, which will periodically summon circles around the battlefield that provide one of three random buffs:

– Triune of Love (Power): Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
– Triune of Determination (Resource Reduction): Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active
– Triune of Creation (Cooldown Reduction): While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly

In other news, awards that were originally available from Season 6 are returning to the Season Journey. Other events include the rotation of Class Sets rewarded for completing certain chapters in the Season Journey courtesy of Haedrig’s Gift.

Below are the full patch notes for next week’s update:

Seasons
The buff for Season 18, the Season of the Triune, has been added
Triune’s Will: All abilities have a chance when hitting an enemy to spawn a circle that gives a power. Only one circle can be active at a time.
Triune of Love (Power): Players in the circle receive a 100% damage bonus while active
Triune of Determination (Resource Reduction): Players in the circle receive a 50% discount on resources spent while active
Triune of Creation (Cooldown Reduction): While standing in an active circle, any skills currently on cooldown come off of cooldown more quickly
Developer Comment: The last couple of Seasonal buffs have been focused primarily on end-game content. We wanted to try something different this Season with a buff that was more beneficial to players regardless of where they might be in their Season Journey. Triune’s Will can come into play as early as level 1 and continue to make an impact on your game experience from the beginning to the end of the Season, and we’re looking forward to seeing how players leverage this ever-changing boost throughout their adventures!
Developer Comment: In addition, we received feedback from players during the PTR about colorblind accessibility. We’ve changed one of the blue-tinted circles to a darker, green earth tone that should stand out a lot more for affected players. We greatly appreciate your feedback!

Items
Developer Note: There are additional specific notes below, but broadly for 2.6.6, we wanted to introduce a handful of new item powers targeted at two audiences: (1) certain classes with long-standing requests for balance/quality of life adjustments and (2) the broader player base for experimenting with Kanai’s Cube. This means fewer class-specific new additions, but more additions that everyone has an opportunity to play with. We also experimented with making some of the craftable sets from Haedrig more appealing for fresh level 70’s or players looking to maximize their farming runs. We hope to see some interesting new theorycrafting and tactics out of 2.6.6 and can’t wait to see what the community does with this new loot!
Updated Item Notes: There are a number of notes below clarifying the intention of certain item functionalities. In a couple cases, such as with Flavor of Time, the item wasn’t behaving properly during PTR per our intentions (which has been fixed). For others, we just wanted to provide more clarity about exactly how these items behave.
Flavor of Time
New Legendary Power: Pylon effects last twice as long.
Note: Only wearers of this item gain this effect. This is intended.
The Executioner
New Legendary Power: Attacks will slay enemies with less than (5-10%) health.
Note: This item’s power does not work on followers. This is intended.
Stone Gauntlets
New Legendary Power: Getting attacked will slowly turn you to stone… (You gain 50% more armor, but your movement speed is reduced by 15% and attack speed is reduced by 20%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
PTR Update: This item now displays a buff icon and has a clearer in-game description. Thank you for the feedback!
Note: Immunity to control-impairing effects can work against the reduced attack and movement speed penalties. This is intended.
Echoing Fury
New Legendary Power: Slaying enemies engulfs the wielder into a Frenzy. (Killing enemies increases your attack speed by 15% and movement speed by 5%. This effect stacks up to 5 times)
PTR Update: This item’s power now works on kill assists and pet kills. Thank you for the feedback!
Squirt’s Necklace
New Legendary Power: While not taking damage, your damage is increased by up to 100% and damage taken is increased by up to 50%.
PTR Update: This item now displays a buff icon. Thank you for the feedback!
Messerschmidt’s Reaver
New Legendary Power: Reduce the remaining cooldown of one of your skills by 1 second when you slay an enemy.
PTR Update: This item’s power now works on kill assists and pet kills. Thank you for the feedback!
Mortick’s Brace
New Legendary Item: Wrath of the Berserker gains the effect of every rune.
Developer’s Note: If you played during the Patch 2.2.0 PTR, you’ll recognize this as an item that was later removed from the game before it went to live servers. At the time, Mortick’s Brace gave too much power for a single item slot. However, the power curve of Diablo III has changed significantly since then and we’re comfortable with bringing it back.
Developer’s Note: We’re not done with Barbarians, either. However, this is a change that required less testing and could be easily added to 2.6.6, so rather than waiting for a larger batch of changes, we saw no reason to hold this one back.
Spite
Note: This item can be crafted from the Blacksmith and is not a normal loot drop
New Legendary Power: Non-cleaving Gargantuans gain the cleave and chilling effects of the Humongoid rune.
Legacy of Dreams
New Legendary Gem:
While you have no set bonuses equipped, every Legendary item you have equipped increases your damage dealt by 3.75% and reduces your damage taken by 2%. (Max level 99)
Rank 25: This bonus is doubled for Ancient items.
Developer’s Note: The end game opened up significantly with Season 17’s Legacy of Nightmare’s buff (and the community was clear about how much these new options were appreciated), but wanted to make this addition a more permanent fixture in a more streamlined way than simply making it baseline. This Legendary Gem should open that path up even further and at more opportunities than just late game Greater Rift pushing.
Crafted Sets
Note: The following sets have been significantly revised from their existing level 70 counterparts. Items crafted prior to 2.6.6 will continue to exist in their old forms but will not be updated after the patch. In addition, after the patch, the old recipes will no longer be available to craft and all players will need to re-acquire these recipes by finding the plans again through Horadric Caches or by killing Odious Collectors.
Sage’s Journey
A Belt has been added to this set.
Haedrig the Blacksmith now automatically learns how to forge this set at Rank 12.
Captain Crimson’s Trimmings
(2) Set Bonus
Regenerates 6000 Life per Second
Reduces cooldown of all skills by~~10%~~ 20%.
Now also reduces Resource Costs by 20%
(3) Set Bonus
Set bonuses have been replaced
Damage dealt is increased by your total percentage of Cooldown Reduction
Damage taken is reduced by your total percentage of Resource Cost Reduction
Aughild’s Authority
(2) Set Bonus
Set bonuses have been replaced
Reduces damage taken by 15%
Increases damage dealt by 30%
(3) Set Bonus
Reduces damage from elites by ~~15%~~ 30%
Increases damage against elites by ~~15%~~ 30%
Cain’s Destiny
(2) Set Bonus
Attack Speed increased by 8%
+50% Experience. (5.0% at level 70) (Moved from (3) Set Bonus)
(3) Set Bonus
When a Greater Rift Keystone drops, there is a 25% chance for an extra one to drop.

Bug Fixes
Fixed an error that occurred when reporting a player via a friend request
Fixed an error that occurred when saving an existing Friend Note without making changes
PTR-Specific Bug Fixes
Squirt’s Necklace
Fixed an issue where the damage taken increase was not reaching the 50% cap
Captain Crimson’s Trimmings
Fixed an issue where the bonus provided by this class set was subject to snapshotting

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