The Panel is live!
On stage: Josh Mosqueira
Patch 2.1.2 announced
New Ghoblins: The Gem Hoarder (silver, drops gems), the Odious Collector (green, drops crafting materials), the Blood Thief (red, drops Blood Shards)
Improved Goblin AI: Will now seek out other enemies
Now speaking: Johnny Ebbert
Adventure Mode: New Legendary Gems, More visual variety for Greater Rifts, new Hub layouts
Tilesets of formerly fixed maps in Greater Rifts are now much more varied, examples: Oasis, Spider Caves, Leoric's Jail; Upcoming: Stinging Winds, Tristram Fields, Festering Woods
Legendary Gems: Legendary Gems usage graph (screenshot to follow), want to make usage of Gems more even by adding new Legendary Gems and Items
2 new Legendary Gems: Esoteric ALteration: Gain 30% non-Physical damage reduction. Bonus: While below half Life, your resistances are increased by 75%.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard: Regenerates 500,00 Life per Second. Bonus: After not taking damage for 4 seconds, gain an absorb shield for 200% of your Life per Second. Numbers subject to change.
Now speaking: Wyatt Cheng
Pylon Changes: Conduit not getting removed in GR. Instead, Speed Pylons ignoring collision and lasting longer, Shield Pylon reflecting damage and exploding when it times out. You should get 2-4 Pylons per GR, not 0 or 6.
Improving Monster Density in all Rifts where it's currently low. Normal monsters as well as Elites.
All the Rift Guardians are getting revisited to be equally challenging but each one should be special in their own right.
Randomness shouldn't dictate success or failure but instead provide a varied experience.
Level generation adjusted: Dead Ends in Rifts shouldn't be at the end of a long hallway, same for big loops.
Death Penalty in GR adjusted. On the PTR, you can rez at the corpse in GR but you get a stacking timer. Hence, the distance to the checkpoint no longer matters.
Season 2: Conquests will be looked at, only some will return from S1, like Reach GR30 or Speed Racer. Reach level 70 is being dropped, though. New Conquests: 50M gold stream outside the Vaul, Kill certain bosses within 20 minutes of starting the game, Complete Lore Books
Season 2 Transmog: Feet and Legs, Season 3: Chest and Hands
Wormwood reworked (see below): Casts Locust Swarm without having to stop
Ranslor's Folly (see below)
Now Speaking: Kevin Martens
More items shown tomorrow, also "something special"
Ancient Items: New Tier of Legendaries. Drops in Torment, the higher the difficulty the more likely, up to 30% better in attributes.
New Zone: Ruins of Sesheron. Barbarian capital city from Diablo II LoD opening cinematic, will be near Arreat Crater in Act III. Lots of Traps.
New Monster types: Glowing Death (sand Wasp variation), Magotts (frost explosion on death), Naja Beetles (shoot fire projectiles)
New Rift Guardian: Rat King: Spawns Rats from his back, entraps you in a circular area, casts "Rat Tornadoes"
Yetis are currently being worked on as a new monster type
All artisans now close together in Act I
Patch 2.1.2 (will have PTR): Ancient Items, Treasure Goblins, Season 2, New Legendaries, Adventure Mode improvements
Later Patch: Ruins of Sescheron, new monsters, new Legendaries, and more
Question Time.
Uber Diablo not actively worked on
No plans to allow players to change item rarity colors
Items will be sent to you via the ingame mail system after the end of a season
Ingame real-money store for things like character slots or stash space has not been announced. Other ways to deal with the underlying issues are being worked on.
Fishing for certain Rift layouts/monsters is not intended and Blizzard tries to address that with the randomness changes, giving you a better mix of monsters.
Act IV and V monsters are being worked on to be less annoying or more rewarding
No further annoucnements for new zones peing planned
Trading is not about to make a comeback (for now) as it can destroy the reward loop of the game, like the AH did. Some types of trading might make it into the game at some point though, the console version's gift system mentioned.
Blizzard would love to bring Season to consoles but it doesn't work with offilne capabilites of the console version.
Adventure Mode will be unlocked at the start of Season 2, there might be Conquests related to Campaign mode in future Seasons, or even not have it unlocked right away.
Can't answer the question for another expansion
Trial changes are coming to 2.1.2, pacing and mosters in them are being looked at. In the current internal build, all monsters can be knocked around. Progression in Trials should be more persistent.
Ancient items are intended for the most dedicated players the have already have their whole sets completed. Currently, the chance for Ancient items is 5-10% on T6. Similar for GR.
There are no announcements for a crafting system similar to Diablo II's rune system, but they're looking for a similar system in spirit.
Panel ends.
Off-Stage info:
New item rarity: Ancient Legendary/Set. Possibly upgraded (via item? artisan?) or rarer version of existing Legendary/Set items which can roll higher attribute values. Example items: Wand of Woh, Vile Ward, Lut Socks, Firebird's Plume, Cindercoat, Sunwuko's Paws, Reaper's Wraps (from press kit)
New Armor Sets (from press kit)
Barbarian:
2P: Rend deals 300% more damage.
4P: Rend lasts 300% longer.
6P: Targets affected by Rend take +300% Whirlwind damage.
Demon Hunter:
2P: Gain 2 Discipline every time you use a Hatred Generator.
4P: Take 20% less damage if there are enemies within 40 yards.
6P: Every point of Discipline you currently have increases the damage of your Hatred Generators and Multishot by 10%.
Wizard: Fierce Set
2P: Casting Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile, and Shock Pulse reduce the cooldown of Slow Time by 1 second.
4P: Enemies affected by your Slow Time take 1250% weapon damage every second.
6P: Enemies affected by your Slow Time take 500% more damage from your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Magic Missile and Shock Pulse.
New area: Ruins of Sescheron (old Barbarian capital, now snowy ruins) along with new monster types. (from playable demo)
Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2
New Rift Guardian: Rat King. (from playable demo)
New types of Treasure Goblins, some of which drop Blood Shards, others gems and others again drop crafting materials and plans. (from playable demo)
Legendary item changes: (from playable demo/press kit)
Wormwood: Locust Swarm deals continous damage.
Gungdo Gear: Exploding Palm's on-death explosion applies Exploding Palm.
Sunwuko Set:
2P: Casting Cyclone Strike, Exploding Palm, Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush or Wave of Light causes a decoy to spawn that taunts nearby enemies and then explodes for 1000% weapon damage.
4P: Enemies hit by the decoy explosion take 500% from your Cyclone Strike, Exploding Palm, Lashing Tail Kick, Tempest Rush or Wave of Light abilities for 3 seconds.
New Item: Crown of the Primus: Slow Time gains the effect of every rune.
New item: Ranslor's Folly: Wrists, Energy Twister periodically pulls in an enemy withing 30 yards. An enemy can only be pulled in this way once every 5 seconds.
New Seasonal Transmogs: Feet, Legs