Diablo 3 update 2.4.3 goes live with that 20 year anniversary retrovision dungeon

By Brenna Hillier

Diablo 3’s very special birthday update is here. Enjoy!

diablo_3_retro_update-16

Diablo 3 has been updated to version 2.43 but this isn’t just your usual balancing and difficulty increase affair – oh no. As previously reported, all 16 levels of the original Diablo are playable in glorious retrovision.

That said, there is of course a great deal of balancing and whatnot going on, and you probably want to know about it. So here they are: the full Diablo 3 2.4.3 patch notes.

General

New Feature: 20th Anniversary Event

A mysterious group of Cultists is stirring up trouble! Hunt them down in Adventure Mode to uncover clues that reveal a portal into Tristram’s past, and rediscover the terrifying darkness that took hold of the town so many years ago…
This event is only available in January. Please note that future anniversary events will feature a pre-cursor event available from January 1-3.

Hardware Support

Support has been added for the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) SDK and Razer peripherals
- Supported backlit keyboards will respond to certain in-game situations like Legendary and Set item drops, characters leveling up, and more
- Players will need to update their firmware for supported devices to use this feature
Added a 64-bit client as default for 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems
- With this, players should see improvements to system performance and faster loading times
- This change uses DirectX 11 natively, which brings support for normal maps, per pixel lighting and improved anti-aliasing options
- The 32-bit client is still available as an option through the Battle.net Launcher
Added a screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) pixel shader option
Added a large cursor option
Improved support for 60Hz+ monitors

Bug Fixes

Resolved an issue that could cause crashes in some instances

Classes

Barbarian

Overpower
- Now has 3 charges
- Cooldown per charge remains 12 seconds with a chance to be reduced slightly by critical strikes

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue which caused Wave of Light to sometimes fail to deal damage when players were under the effect of Epiphany
Fixed a bug which prevented a Hydra from being spawned when two Mirror Images attempted to cast Summon Hydra at the same time
Fixed an issue which caused the active effect of Earth Ally and Fire Ally to not benefit from Attacks Per Second or +Mystic Ally damage
Fixed an issue which prevented the Archon version of Teleport from correctly incorporating the player’s attacks per second

Items

Legendary Items

Red Soulstone Shard – New Legendary Gem
- Periodically struggle for control, unleashing a ring of Fire that inflicts 12,500% weapon damage to enemies it passes through
- With the above change, the primary effect of the gem deals significantly more damage at the gem’s base level, but scales more slowly with additional levels
- After gaining a level, your resource costs are removed and cooldowns on skills are reduced by 75% for 30 seconds (Requires Rank 25)

Class Specific Items (1)

Crusader
- Armor of Akkhan: Talisman of Akkhan (Amulet)
- Has been added as a 7th piece to Armor of Akkhan
- The set’s current bonuses and powers remain the same
- This amulet will always roll with Critical Hit Chance in addition to 3 other random affixes

Class Specific Items (2)

Barbarian: Saffron Wrap
- The damage of your next Overpower is increased by 40-50% for each enemy hit, up to a maximum of 20 enemies
Crusader: Faithful Memory
- Each enemy hit by Falling Sword increases the damage of Blessed Hammer by 50-60% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 10 times
Demon Hunter: Hellcat Waistguard
- Grenades have a chance to bounce 3-5 times, dealing an additional 50% damage on each bounce. This bonus is increased to 800% on the final bounce. The following skills are affected by this power:
  - Cluster Arrow – Dazzling Arrow, Cluster Bombs, Loaded for Bear, No Rune
  - Rain of Vengeance – Anathema
  - Strafe – Demolition
  - Rapid Fire – Bombardment
Monk: Rabid Strike
- Spirit spenders that teleport you while Epiphany is active are also mimicked on a distant target for free
Witch Doctor: The Barber
- Instead of dealing direct damage, your Spirit Barrage now accumulates on the target
- When you stop casting, it explodes dealing the accumulated damage to all enemies within 15 yards
Wizard: Manald Heal
- Enemies stunned with Paralysis also take 13,000-14,000% weapon damage as Lightning

Class Specific Items (3)

Crusader: Defender of Westmarch
- Can no longer summon a wolf more than once per second
- Damage done by the wolf is increased for each block made during the interim
Witch Doctor: Jeram’s Bracers
- The minimum level for this item to drop has changed from 12 to 31 in order to match the level at which Wall of Death unlocks

Class Specific Items (4)

Barbarian: Wrath of the Wastes (6) Set Bonus
- Whirlwind gains the effect of the Dust Devils rune and all Whirlwind damage is increased by 800%
- The damage of your Dust Devils is increased by 180%
- Please note that these changes will not be reflected in the item’s tooltip
Crusader: Roland’s Legacy (4) Set Bonus
- Increase the damage of Shield Bash and Sweep Attack by 1250%
Crusader: Roland’s Legacy (6) Set Bonus
- Every use of Shield Bash or Sweep Attack that hits an enemy grants 50% increased Attack Speed and 15% damage reduction for 8 seconds. This effect stacks up to 5 times.
Demon Hunter: Embodiment of the Marauder (6) Set Bonus
- Your primary skills, Elemental Arrow, Chakram, Impale, Multishot, Cluster Arrow, Companions, and Vengeance deal 1200% increased damage for every active Sentry
Monk: Inna’s Mantra (6) Set Bonus
- Gain the five runed Mystic Allies at all times and your damage is increased by 100% for each Mystic Ally you have out
Witch Doctor: Spirit of Arachyr (6) Set Bonus
- The damage of your creature skills is increased by 2400%. Creature skills are Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, Firebats, Locust Swarm, Hex, and Piranhas.
Wizard: Delsere’s Magnum Opus (6) Set Bonus
- Enemies affected by your Slow Time take 2800% increased damage from your Arcane Orb, Energy Twister, Explosive Blast, Magic Missile, Shock Pulse, Spectral Blade, and Wave of Force abilities.

Class Item Bug Fixes

Hellfire Amulet
- Fixed an issue where Fetishes spawned by this item with the Fetish Sycophants passive would not reduce the cooldown of Big Bad Voodoo correctly when Starmetal Kukri was equipped
Illusory Boots
- Will now properly allow Crusaders using Steed Charge to pass through walls
Pinto’s Pride
- Fixed a bug where the bonus Wave of Light damage from this item was not being calculated correctly
Flail of the Ascended
- Now takes into account +Shield Bash affix bonuses in its damage
- Damage stacks will now persist when changing gear and picking up items
Faithful Memory
- Fixed an issue where Faithful Memory was not properly buffing damage from certain Blessed Hammer runes
Fixed an issue which sometimes caused cosmetic pets to be dismissed unintentionally, requiring the player to resummon them through the collections UI
Fixed a bug causing transmogrify options to not properly unlock sometimes when first acquiring an item which grants a new transmogrify option
Fixed a bug which caused the buff from the Legendary item Ahvarion, Spear of Lycander to end when changing floors in a Greater Rift
Fixed an issue which caused the Bones cosmetic pet to incorrectly produce sound when players interacted with some user interface elements
Fixed an issue which caused +Elemental damage bonuses on weapons to override the damage bonus granted to Ancient Spear by Skular’s Salvation and its elemental type
Fixed an issue which allowed Necrosis damage from the Helltooth Harness set to be reflected back by some enemies onto Witch Doctors using projectiles like Poison Dart

Seasons

Season Journey

The Destroyer and Guardian tiers of the Season Journey will no longer require players to augment an Ancient Legendary item using level 30 or higher and level 40 or higher Legendary gems, respectively
Along with this, the Conqueror tier now requires players to augment one Ancient Legendary item using a Legendary Gem at level 50 or higher
Starting with Season 9, players will be able to complete the Sanctuary’s Most Wanted objective in the Season Journey across multiple games

Adventure Mode

Bounties

Kill Aloysius
Kill Axegrave
Kill Bholen
Kill Captain Donn Adams
Kill The Crusher

Rifts

Enemy density and overall map size have been reduced
This area can now appear as the starting dungeon in Rifts and Greater Rifts

Greater Rifts

The Greater Rift progress bar now displays the percentage completion at the end of the bar when it is nearly filled
Monsters should now be more evenly distributed on each floor in Greater Rifts. Along with this, the experience and Greater Rift progression awarded for defeating many smaller monsters has been increased
The size of each floor in a Greater Rift is now more consistent. On average, a rift should take between two and four floors to clear
There is no longer an increased chance to see the same tile set when you venture down a floor in a Greater Rift
There is now a guaranteed area at the entrance of each floor with no monsters. This area is just large enough for ranged characters to manoeuvre
Several additional monster types can now appear as Champions and Elites
Greater Rifts now spawn Hellhide Tremors, Disentombed Hulks, Sand Dwellers, and Colossol Golgors with other monsters in somewhat larger groups
Greater Rifts now spawn somewhat fewer Sand Wasps and Fallen Grunts on floors where they appear
The stacking effect of the following is now cleared upon entering a Greater Rift
- The items Lord Greenstone’s Fan, Fortress Ballista and Flail of the Ascended
- The skills Arcane Dynamo and Mythic Rhythm
The gold reward and empower cost for Greater Rift 25 and above have been increased. The ratio between gold reward and empower cost remains about the same
Players will now get an extra chance to upgrade their Legendary Gems if they do not die in a Greater Rift

Greed’s Realm

The portal to Greed’s Realm will now close 60 seconds after opening Greed’s chest. With this, players may now open multiple portals to the realm in a single game

Zones

The waypoint for Pandemonium Fortress Level 2 in Adventure Mode has been moved from the entrance to the midpoint of the level in order to provide quicker access to some bounties. With this change, bounties requiring you to kill unique enemies will only spawn these enemies in the first half of the dungeon, and all monsters on the map will contribute to bounty progress

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue preventing the scene for Bounty: Research Problems from spawning
Fixed bugs that led to large open areas with no monsters in some rooms in Greater Rifts, which was especially common near the entrance to certain floors

Monsters

Enemies

Several enemies that leap at the player can now be killed in mid-air, including Winged Assassins, Punishers, Lacuni Huntresses, and Burrowing Leapers
Several enemies that can become un-attackable, such as Sandsharks, Snakemen, and Rockworms now spend more time vulnerable. When these enemies do burrow or stealth, they no longer remain in this state for more than 3 seconds. In addition, emerging Rockworms now always show ground cracks to help attentive players avoid their initial attack
The Succubus’ Bloodstar attack has had its damage reduced by 15% and the projectile’s travel distance has been reduced
The damage from Khazra spears has been reduced by 15%
The damage from Ice Porcupine icicles has been reduced by 15%

Enemy Affixes

Shielding
- Will now be cancelled immediately if the shielded monster is the last remaining monster in a pack
Reflects Damage
- Now fires a projectile instead of instantly dealing damage to the player
- The warning duration for this affix has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1, and its active duration has been reduced from 6 seconds to 4
Electrified
- Crawling lightning generated by this affix now pierces, allowing it to damage multiple targets in succession
- With this, the damage caused by this affix has been reduced by about 35%
Juggernaut – new enemy affix
- Juggernaut monsters are permanently immune to crowd control effects, but move more slowly than normal monsters
- Along with this change, enemies with this affix take 30% more damage from all sources
- Only a rare Elite enemy can be a Juggernaut
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue which caused Winged Assassins to sometimes travel across the ground instead of through the air when leaping
- Fixed an issue which prevented Greater Rift Guardians from reliably teleporting to players when they spawned more than a few screens away
- Fixed an issue which sometimes cause Rift Guardians to spawn in a location where they couldn’t be targeted

Bosses

Belial

Now transitions more swiftly between his normal and larger version boss phases

Achievements

Bug Fixes

Fixed the wording on the “Socket To Me” achievement to clarify that socketing only one gem is required

Quality of Life

Dyes

Can now be accessed through a new tab at the Mystic
This includes Collector’s Edition dyes
With this change, dyes will no longer be sold by vendors

Bug Fixes

Fixed display and text issues with some skills and items
Fixed an issue causing keybind issues when the UI was hidden
Fixed a bug which caused Followers to sometimes become idle in combat
Fixed an issue which prevented Followers from being dismissed while they were incapacitated in battle
Fixed an issue which allowed pets and Followers to be attacked immediately after exiting a portal

the Pirate King

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