Announcement Patch #14: Class Balances, New Runewords, New Level 85 Areas and More

The latest patch is now live on the servers!

Important: As always, you must be up-to-date with the latest patch version in order to create and join games and there are two ways of doing that:
1. Restart the Diablo II Launcher and let it auto-update to the latest patch version
2. Visit our website and re-patch your game by downloading the realm patch from http://europebattle.net/d2/join
Run the game as an Administrator.

PS: There is a small visual bug regarding the new ACT 5 Axe Mercenary due to hardcoded game functions, upon the first time you hire him he will appear as a regular mercenary wielding a broad sword.
Simply re-join that game or create a new one to see and be able to equip 1 One-Handed Axes. Also, if your UI doesn't feel right, again, make sure to update your game and overwrite the older files if you decide to go for the manual patching method but we strongly recommend using our latest launcher that takes care of everything.

 

@Kaly, do me a favor and post this again in the right category http://forum.europebattle.net/forums/suggestions.846/

 

I believe he means that it does not change end game balance for PvM and PvP. For example the new Obsession runeword (Zod Ist Lem Lum Jo Nef ) is an alternative to Hoto + Spirit. It will allow even at end game to prefer playing a sorc without the shield, personally this sounds cool to me and I will give it a chance. Even if it will not necessary mean it will be better than Hoto + Spirit for certain situations, or duels.

 

If you find the assassin broken, you do have time to test it now until the reset and give feedback. This is the main reason to give the patch update before the server reset.
I, as an assassin player would test the skill changes now but I doubt it will be "broken" it will do a little bit more dmg due to the % light dmg working now, skills rework would pretty much allow more block on trapsins and / or more balanced hybrids.
If anything scares me it would be how much dmg would a bone necromancer make now with our extended Charm inventory.

 

Most of the new runewords were not introduced by the game developers to replace the current best alternatives @Zdravko so I'm not sure what you are venting about. They are low-mid tier alternatives and they clearly specified that the moment they introduced them a year ago. There's this beautiful thing called freedom of choice meaning you don't have to use them at all if you don't want to and I've mentioned editors and single-player because that could give one the possibility to have whatever runeword their weirdest dreams wishes for, something that it's unlikely to happen in a multiplayer realm.
If you expected different runewords, then I suggest posting your suggestions in the right category and who knows, maybe some of those could become reality one day if they are proper and follow the blizzlike concept we're sticking to. Other than that, respect others opinions just as they did yours and don't tell them how they should play the game.

 

well you loose block and mana, gain a LOT of life - I haven't tested it yet but it looks fairly comparable to spirit + hoto like 20ish % max life is not to be underestimated.

well necro do have 50% stronger shield now, and "squishe" or not a good bone necro is almost always going to beat up any hybrid or pure ww assassin. WW sins are really not so strong once we bring the 19 charms we can wear here. For classic inventory of 10x4 inventory the ww or hybrid assassins were much stronger. Personal experience and if you do check the pvp results from D2R players that is still valid.
Mosaic RW was the only overpowered change for which we have a nerfed version.

 

Then you should start doing that yourself @Zdravko, you haven't suggested anything so far only vented about it and although you're saying you don't want to be disrespectful you're starting to become. Hopefully that's not what you've learned over the years you mentioned since your complaint thread about this game having ladder resets. Now let us end it here and follow what I've mentioned above if you have suggestions for what you would consider better runewords than the game developers themselves came up with and I'm not saying there are no better ideas or alternatives out there because there might as well be and that's why we have a suggestions section but as always, keep it within the blizzlike parameters.

 

I'm going to quote @kiwifruit's post here in case it was missed, because at this point you should be in game and actually check those things out. So far, you're the only one claiming that without even playing.

Games like Diablo II, III, IV, PoE, Lost Ark, Borderlands, etc are all created with seasons concept in mind from the very begining unlike open world games such as World of Warcraft for example, so the vast majority would want to grind all over again otherwise we are fortunate enough to offer the non-ladder possibility for those who don't want that. Heck, even moba games like Dota2 or LoL or fps games like CoD, Fortnite, Valorant, etc and many others are all based on seasons nowadays where you basically have to grind your rank all over again every 3 - 4 months.

 

perhaps you have not seen @Sublimeee wiping the floor with my maxed out hybrids to think that necro is weak, the last PvP event was exactly that, I got 2nd place with a hybrid that had 44+ inventory and claws that can't get much better. you can see the duels result here, Chinensis was a ww hybrid and dhgLTD was a bone necro.

I also have a decent bone necro and even though I can't play it well, killing assassins is quite easy. We can test as I have both assas and necro now.
Necro is one of the characters that really benefits from having 40+ skillers, if you play a duel where both players do not have similar inventory, then odds aren't the same.

PS. thanks for the good luck so far I have no plans to make PvP characters for next ladder, but if I find the right stuff I would surely try necro and not only, new changes make many builds interesting to me.