Diablo III Patch 2.1.2 is Now Live, Bringing New Goblins, And "Ancient Legendaries"

[Steven Bogos]

Diablo III Patch 2.1.2 is Now Live, Bringing New Goblins, And "Ancient Legendaries"

Major reworks to Demon Hunter, Monk, and Barbarian endgame sets are also a focus of Diablo III's 2.1.2 patch.

Remember last year's Blizzcon, where Blizzard promised Diablo fans [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138484-Blizzard-Plans-New-Legendaries-Gems-and-Goblins-for-Diablo-III-Patch] some juicy new changes for it's endless loot-farming dungeon crawler, Diablo III? Well, good news! A lot of the stuff we fawned over at Blizzcon has just been released in the 2.1.2 patch!

You can check out the full patch notes here [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/17561388/patch-212-now-live-1-13-2015], but for a quick TL;DR summary of the most important points, patch 2.1.2 consists of:

Various changes to classes, including reworks of Demon Hunter, Monk, and Barbarian endgame sets
Three new legendary gems and three new legendary items
A rework of multiple "old" legendary items, with many getting a new "legendary power"
Four new types of treasure goblin that each drop specific kinds of loot (IE: the "Gem Hoarder" goblin who only drops gems)
The introduction of a new tier of item: "Ancient Legendary". These items are the same as their Legendary counterparts, but roll with a higher stat range

Other, more minor changes include a nerf/buff to the various pylons found in greater rifts (bye bye god-mode conduit pylon), and some nerfs to some of the game's most annoying monsters.

For those of you wondering where Season 2 is, Blizzard announced that while all the Season 2 data has been included in this patch, it won't actually kick off until some time in February [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/17152343/end-of-season-what-to-expect-12-30-2014], which means you still have time to race your Season 1 character to level 70, for those exclusive transmog rewards.

It's nothing too major or amazing, but it's a nice patch full of content players have been asking for for a while. Enjoy!

Source: Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/17561388/patch-212-now-live-1-13-2015]

Permalink

 

[Aeshi]

Cue whining about always online in 3, 2, 1...

Is it just me or does Diablo 3 seem just like World of Warcraft with a different camera angle?

Not to bash WoW, I've played it for 6 years and loved 5 1/2 of it (then I grew bored). But now D3 offers different tiers of the same bloody legendary item, like WoW did with several raid epics from WotLK onward, the 'skill tree' concepts seem rather similiar now... The only thing D3 lacks is a subscription model.

And that's all people seem to really want from D3, anything that makes the two differ has been complained about and then squashed flat as a result.

 

[Sanunes]

Is it just me or does Diablo 3 seem just like World of Warcraft with a different camera angle?

Not to bash WoW, I've played it for 6 years and loved 5 1/2 of it (then I grew bored). But now D3 offers different tiers of the same bloody legendary item, like WoW did with several raid epics from WotLK onward, the 'skill tree' concepts seem rather similiar now... The only thing D3 lacks is a subscription model.

I agree with Aeshi, Blizzard is just giving people what they want. The thing is the Diablo franchise has always been about just grinding the same areas for the hopes of better loot, all they have done is given the average gamer a chance to get the good stuff.

The nice thing about D3 over WoW is I can experience all the content in the game and have a chance to get everything on my own schedule.

 

[Ferisar]

Is it just me or does Diablo 3 seem just like World of Warcraft with a different camera angle?

Not to bash WoW, I've played it for 6 years and loved 5 1/2 of it (then I grew bored). But now D3 offers different tiers of the same bloody legendary item, like WoW did with several raid epics from WotLK onward, the 'skill tree' concepts seem rather similiar now... The only thing D3 lacks is a subscription model.

I've seen this comparison or a logistical level before, and it never quite rings with me. There are fundamental differences between WoW and Diablo in terms of items and encounters that completely separate that comparison.

WoW wants you to experience difficult content. That's the end-goal. It wants you to beat high-end raid-bosses and items are just a means to an end. They can be interesting, they can have statistics that change up some of your gameplay, but their baseline idea is very simple: stats to advance.

Diablo (2 and 3, specifically), wants you to get better loot, and the enemies and bosses are a means to an end for that. They -can- be interesting, flashy, difficult, et cetera, but the foundation is interesting items that the game wants you to get which either change up your gameplay drastically or provide incentive to advance forward.

They're both really similar, but it's a bit of a flip when it comes to gameplay priority, at least from the point of which system takes the fore and which supports the other. This has been true since WoW has found its identity back in late vanilla and still remains true. I'd argue that Diablo didn't find this until somewhere around the end of D2 classic, but still.

Obviously, this disregards everything else in both games. There are other things to be had from the two that have nothing to do with encounters/items.

 

[AuronFtw]

This patch (and the few before, honestly) is pretty much top-to-bottom great changes.

The biggest and most-talked-about change is a rework of the Marauder set, commonly called M6DH or "sentry" build, which, previously, was boring as shit (but insanely effective). Instead of merely shitting out sentries then going afk while they solo the game for you, the rework pushed more damage output on active abilities by tying the sentry's skills used to the player's, and buffing the player's main damage skills by 100% per sentry active. Short version - you can't afk as much anymore, but the build is actually stronger than it used to be... as long as you're in range of enemies, which means you've got a greater chance of taking hits/dying.

Haven't played the new raekor's/barb set yet, will update with how it goes when I do (if I remember).

Is it just me or does Diablo 3 seem just like World of Warcraft with a different camera angle?

Not to bash WoW, I've played it for 6 years and loved 5 1/2 of it (then I grew bored). But now D3 offers different tiers of the same bloody legendary item, like WoW did with several raid epics from WotLK onward, the 'skill tree' concepts seem rather similiar now... The only thing D3 lacks is a subscription model.

No, it's very similar - they're both essentially gear treadmills. What d3 offers is a (primarily) solo experience where you can do whatever content you wish, including "endgame" content, on your own schedule and based on your own skill level. You *can* play with people, but unless it's people you know, chances are they'll just be dead weight and slow the group down. Kinda like WoW, heh. For high Greater Rift clearing, double unity with invincible follower token provides a permanent 50% damage decrease, and it kinda seems like Blizzard designed around that. Playing with even 1 other person renders unity worthless (since you lose invincible follower, and if both players have unity they assrape each other), so it's only "worth it" to do so if that player is equally good, equally geared and your builds have synergy. That said, it's still mad fun to cruise through lower level content with bros, even if builds don't synergize.

WoW offers more content more frequently, and there's always a plethora of things to do besides raiding. D3 doesn't really have all that much - limited transmog options and only a few dozen maps. But with the adventure time added in RoS, doing bounties/rifts/GRs really extends the life of the game, and lets people who enjoy the gear treadmill just grind grind grind without interruption. It's pretty fantastic!

I'm still surprised how good the D3 patches have been, considering the lack of sub. Blizzard is still putting a lot of time and effort into the game to polish it up and fix its biggest problems.

If there's any complaint I have, it's that the majority of any (endgame viable) build's damage comes from set bonuses. Firebird's dot is a set bonus, jade's big nuke with soul harvest is a set bonus, furious charge needs all the runes active which is a set bonus, DH needs that sentry build which revolves around marauders, and literally all the strong crusader builds revolve around 6pc Akkhan, which both reduces cd of Akarat (making it maintainable with enough cdr) and reduces skill costs by 50% while it's up. Those set bonuses are so much stronger than any other option that theory crafting is stifled - any time you'd theory craft dropping that set for something else, you'll quickly find how shit all other options are in comparison. Some skills are so shitty that they basically *need* the set to run (WD dots, furious charge, etc) and some skills without sets are just permanently unused (hurr energy twister).

That said, given how easy it is to gear up all six classes to a T6-viable level, there's still a variety of playstyles available, often two or three per class. It's just a big change from d2, which was much more open-ended as far as skill selection/synergy went. (Going to preemptively mention that stat allocation in d2 was illusion of choice, though; 99% of builds just went str/dex to equip gear, 0 energy and everything left in vit, so I have no problem whatsoever with that kind of stat allocation not being available in d3).

 

[wulfy42]

Is this patch only for the pc version or the ps3 version as well? I seem to remember that the ps3/xbox 360 versions where not going to be patched anymore....but perhaps I'm mixing that up with another game.

 

[Olrod]

The OP didn't mention which platform version of Diablo III this article was talking about.

 

[Sanunes]

Is this patch only for the pc version or the ps3 version as well? I seem to remember that the ps3/xbox 360 versions where not going to be patched anymore....but perhaps I'm mixing that up with another game.

I am pretty sure they are still getting patches, but they just won't be the same as what the PC gets (I think what the consoles don't get are the seasons, but I could be wrong).

 

[black_knight1337]

I'm still surprised how good the D3 patches have been, considering the lack of sub. Blizzard is still putting a lot of time and effort into the game to polish it up and fix its biggest problems.

Have to agree with you there, their post-release support has been pretty good. 2.2 is shaping up to be pretty damn good too. 6+ reworked sets, 3+ new sets, new legendaries (supposed to be a pretty big focus on rings), new zone, new mobs and a new rift boss.

OT: This patch is pretty good. New goblins are sweet, especially when you get big packs of them your screen gets covered in loot. M6 changes are good too, nice buff for my hybrid marauder's/nat's strafe build. Heard good things about the Monk set rework too, haven't had a chance to try that out yet though.