Diablo III Reaper of Souls was announced at Gamescom 2013, and we’ve compiled a list of everything we know so far about the expansion. Blizzard has revealed many more details following its press conference on Reaper of Souls, which include what changes will come for those that choose not to purchase the expansion. In true Blizzard fashion, no release date for Reaper of Souls has been announced yet, but for now, check out all the information on the title below.
The Crusader Class
As we detailed previously, Reaper of Souls will feature an all-new class called the Crusader, which is heavily influenced by Diablo II’s Paladin class. Its resource will be called “Wrath” and it will be a strength hero, as was speculated since Diablo III currently has a pair of intelligence and dexterity heroes, but a single strength hero with the Barbarian. From what we’ve seen, it will use a one-handed Flail weapon and a shield in the other hand, though it’s currently unknown if the Crusader will be able to dual wield weapons or equip a two-hander. It’s likely that Blizzard will want to make the Crusader unique like the Demon Hunter, by restricting the class to having to always wield a shield.
The skill categories that have been spotted for the Crusader through various screenshots include: primary, secondary, defensive, utility, laws, and conviction. The known active skills list comprises of:
- Sweep Attack
- Shield Glare
- Judgement
- Laws of Justice
- Heaven’s Fury
- Consecration
- Shield Bash
- Fist of the Heavens
- Blessed Shield
- Blessed Hammer
- Falling Sword
- Punish
Taking a glance at the active skills, there’s no doubt that the Crusader is designed to be the Tank class for Diablo III, able to absorb plenty of incoming damage while protecting its companions.
Here’s a list of the currently known Crusader Passive Skills:
- Indestructible
- Wrathful
- Wrecking Ball
- Against All Odds
- Finery
- Heavenly Strength
- Holy Cause
- Vigilant
- Long Arm of the Law
- Stand Your Ground
Act V
Act V will take place in Westmarch, a zone heavily influenced by the Gothic West, according to Blizzard. Known locations for the zone so far include Westmarch Overlook, The Wolf Gate, Moldering Waterway, Old Storehouse, Streets of Westmarch, Cathedral Courtyard, and Zakarum Cathedral. Interestingly enough, some videos have surfaced on social media sites of enhancements have been made in the zoning process of Diablo III. In other words, there was literally no load time between travelling through zones. It’s unsure if this will apply throughout the entire game, or if only Act V was purposely designed with that feature in mind.
Character Levels and Paragon Levels
Reaper of Souls will raise the level cap to 70 for each character class. Every class currently in the game, Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Wizard, will receive new skills and abilities to go along with the increased level cap. In addition, the Paragon system is getting an overhaul, which Blizzard is referring to as Paragon 2.0. The Paragon level will now be shared account wide, rather than tied to a single character, and there will no longer be a Paragon level cap of 100. According to a tweet by Lylirra, community manager for Diablo III, the shared Paragon level will be calculated by adding up the Paragon experience across all your existing heroes.
Paragon 2.0 will also introduce the Paragon points system, which will allow players to customize their character’s stats, something players have been begging for since day one. That means you’ll be able to allocate stat points between main stat (strength, dexterity, intelligence), vitality, and even arbitrary stats including move speed, critical hit chance, critical hit damage, attack speed, and more. Hopefully Paragon 2.0 will also allow you to increase your character’s pickup radius so Blizzard can discard that stat entirely from itemization.
Loot 2.0
Loot 2.0 has been talked about for months now, and finally we have some details of the system. As promised before, Legendary items will now drop for any level and Blizzard will incorporate its “Smart Drops” system found in the console versions to the PC version of Diablo III. Smart Drops essentially means that drops are less frequent, but when an item does drop, it’s more relevant to the class that you’re playing. Essentially, items will now have a higher chance of dropping with stats tailored to the class that you’re playing. No more quivers with strength on them, hooray! Legendaries will also be receiving changes across the board, with new ones being added in, and old ones getting all new affixes that make the items actually feel legendary.
In Blizzard’s presentation, they threw out some numbers for us to compare. In an Act III playthrough on a Paragon level 40 character, you’d currently see about 256 white items, 399 blue items, 275 rares, and 1 legendary. Chances are, if you’ve been playing Diablo III, that means you picked up about two items on that run, or you have a lot of crafting mats lying around. For Loot 2.0, you’d see only 73 whites, but Blizzard also noted that those whites would play a newrole in the game; a new crafting reagent from those whites will be introduced, giving them actual meaning. 266 blues would drop in Loot 2.0, which can not only be disenchanted for crafting reagents, but can be used to transmogrify the appearance of your gear. 83 yellow items would be seen, a drastic drop from the 275 in the current loot rate. And finally, six legendary items dropped. Blizzard wants to ensure that players are seeing legendaries more often, but also noted that not all legendaries would be build changers, though many will be. Still, expect a fair share of junk legendaries to drop, but at least most of them would be fun to look at.
Some of those legendary items that Blizzard showed off included an updated Puzzle Ring which now has an affix of “35% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items.” As for its legendary affix, you have a chance to summon a treasure goblin that picks up normal quality items for you. After the goblin picks up 40 items, he drops a rare item with a chance for a legendary. The new Puzzle Ring also had a socket in it and showed off iLvl 70 properties which was +338 Intelligence, +23 Arcane Resistance, and 6% Increased Attack Speed.
It’s worth noting that some of the weapons Blizzard showed off had astronomical damage values, potentially hinting that current top-tiered items will become worthless come expansion time. A legendary one-handed Wand that was shown off, called Serpent’s Sparker, had 3138.1 DPS with an attack speed of 1.4. Its stats included +383 Intelligence, +10 Max Arcane Power, Critical Hits Grant 12 Arcane Power, and its legendary affix was “Chance on kill to summon a Hydra at the enemy’s location.” Oh yeah, it had an open socket too, so fill it with even more damage or crit damage. Either way, you should expect a major increase in damage come Reaper of Souls.
Those that are World of Warcraft veterans should not be surprised. When Burning Crusade was first released, the first green quest reward item made your previous purple epic obsolete, immediately. It’s really no surprise that Blizzard will want to make current items obsolete as quickly as possible, especially with the new level cap. It essentially would want to pretend the current items were never created once Reaper of Souls is released.
Crafting
In addition to the new crafting reagent that will come from disenchanting common items (which aren’t really all that common anymore), the Mystic will finally make an appearance in the game. Originally axed during the beta process for Diablo III, the Mystic will allow you to enchant your items by rerolling an affix on either a legendary or a rare. It will also be able to transmogrify your gear so that you can alter the appearance of your character with any other item you’ve found in the game. It’s unknown right now if you actually have to have the source item in your inventory or stash in order to transmog the appearance of your gear.
New Features
Blizzard is putting a lot of thought into revamping the end game for Reaper of Souls, so that players don’t have to run the same run over and over, like they’re doing now. Those new game modes include Loot Runs and Nephalem Trials. Loot Runs were revealed to be 15-20 minute long dungeons that are entirely random, including the map, weather, and mobs, and will be multi-tiered and have a boss at the end with an increased chance to drop a rare or legendary. Details on the Nephalem Trials mode was light, but they sound like a play on the infinite dungeon game mode that people have been begging for. As for our guess? We believe they’ll be timed trials where players will have to take down as many mobs as possible in a certain period of time. Rewards will be based on how many mobs were destroyed in the allocated time, and the introduction of a leaderboard would really be awesome. And if our guess is wrong, that’s something Blizzard should totally do.
A screenshot also revealed that the stat “Toughness” makes an appearance on the character sheet, which appears to be a numerical value that current Diablo III players could refer to as EHP. Essentially, it appears that Blizzard wants to make it simpler for characters to determine if a certain item will buff overall defense without having to crunch EHP formulas.
What We Don’t Know
With Blizzcon coming in November, we expect more details to be revealed at panels during the event in Anaheim, California. There’s plenty of questions still left to be answered about the expansion, including the state of PvP. Most importantly, it’ll be interesting to see how Blizzard addresses magic find and gold find bonuses with the new Paragon system. We also expect more information on the crafting system, including new gems and reagents. Questions we’d like to see answered include whether or not there will be new affixes added to packs, if a ladder system will be introduced, will players be able to bounce between acts easily, and if Blizzard will be raising the character cap per account with the introduction of a new class.
What Has Been Hinted
Watching the gameplay trailer over and over, it appears that Blizzard has gone back and changed some of the existing zones in the game so that Acts I through IV will seem fresh come expansion time. There seems to be new mobs in old zones along with new effects for those mobs. Who wouldn’t want to see a Hulking Beast wandering around in Act I? Well, other than the Jay Wilson special boss in Developer’s Hell.
Who Gets What
Blizzard community manager Grimiku made an official forum post elaborating on which features will be exclusive to Reaper of Souls and what features will be patched into the core game:
We want to implement a lot of the new systems and features in a pre-expansion patch for free. That should include Paragon 2.0, Loot 2.0, Loot Runs, and Nephalem Trials. For now, you’ll need to purchase the expansion to play as the Crusader, explore Act V, unlock the Mystic, and level up to 70. These details may change as development moves along, but we want some of the core gameplay improvements to be available for everyone.
As for us, we’re excited to see the changes that are coming to Diablo III. While many have criticized its gameplay, itemization, and loot, we’ve invested more than our fair share of hours into the title and found it entertaining. Full Cleared will be attending Blizzcon 2013, so expect more news as we report live from the event on November 8-9, 2013.
View the opening cinematic for Reaper of Souls below.
