Diablo 3 Best Builds, Guides, and News

We recently got treated with a whole bunch of original/Blizzard North Diablo 3 screenshots courtesy of artist Oscar Cuesta, and today he's going a step further and sharing his knowledge of both versions of D3, the Blizzard North and Blizzard "South" one, aka the Diablo 3 that wasn't to be and the one we got in the end. In an interview with PureDiablo he goes over the differences between the two projects, how we almost got an even more colorful D3, the high-fantasy and space RPG Blizzard were working on, as well as his personal work experience on both and more. May 31, 2020 at 06:48 by Starym

World First Diablo 2 + LoD Speed Run in Under 1 Hour

Another weird one today, as we have the entirety of Diablo 2 and the Lord of Destruction expansion getting speed run (without any glitches/hacks etc.) solo in under an hour! It took Slimo 59 minutes and 29 seconds to get to Baal and down him, with a lot of time spent on leveling to 18 for Teleport, followed by a looot of blinking around the various maps and spamming Nova and Static Field all over the place. The probably biggest moment (aside from Diablo and Baal dying) comes at the 27 minute mark, when a massive amount of farming the first pack in the Jail level 1 results in the big Teleport breakthrough, at which point the speed takes off and acts melt away, with the entirety of act 5 actually taking less than 6 minutes! 4 comments May 29, 2020 at 07:40 by Starym

The Season 21 and patch 2.6.9 PTR is finally live (and about a week late), as announced yesterday, and you can head on in and try out the new Demon Hunter and Necromancer sets and legendaries, seasonal power, class changes and more! Check out all the new additions under the tweet: 2 comments May 28, 2020 at 19:44 by Starym

We finally have some more specific news on the Season 21 PTR delay and it seems that we'll be seeing it live tomorrow in the Pacific afternoon aka around midnight CET! The PTR brings with it a new seasonal power, 2 new sets, a whole lot of new legendary powers and more. 2 comments May 27, 2020 at 22:56 by Starym

Diablo 2 Remaster? A Classic Revival to Be Announced at IGN Summer

IGN's Summer of Gaming event has posted a schedule for their June events, which has brought up some interesting questions and theories. We know Blizzard are participating in the event and one of the entries on the schedule is labeled as an "Unannounced Classic Revival", without any attribution for which studio it belongs to. As we all know, Diablo 2 remaster rumors have been swirling around since BlizzCon 2018, with the recent Diablo: Resurrected one having stirred things up (the one about Activision-owned studio Vicarious Visions working on the remaster and it coming out this year). 3 comments May 27, 2020 at 20:44 by Starym

Diablo 3 Opening Cinematic 8K 60FPS Upscale

After the cinematic trailer/teaser, we now have the actual introduction to the game get the AI upscaling treatment, all the way to 8K with an added 60 FPS upgrade to boot! You can also see the direct comparison to the original version at the half-way mark, with the new version being significantly more... golden. 1 comment May 27, 2020 at 06:12 by Starym

Season 21 PTR Update: Still Aiming at This Week

The Diablo team is back from the prolonged weekend, with Memorial Day behind us, but they have some more bad news for the PTR, as not enough progress has been made on the issues and we still don't have any specific date for the launch. New community manager PezRadar clarified it's still aimed for this week, but they don't want to specific any date (but I'd say it's definitely looking to be Thursday or Friday if they don't postpone even more). May 26, 2020 at 23:00 by Starym

BlizzCon 2020 Cancelled, New Plans Being Worked On

Unfortunately it seems we won't have a BlizzCon this year at all, not even in digital form, with Blizzard working on something for early next year. The esports events will continue, however, presumably as standalone entries. 10 comments May 26, 2020 at 19:43 by Starym

We have an update after the previously announced delay - it seems we won't be seeing the Season 21 PTR until sometime next week, after Monday as well since it's a federal holiday in the US. May 22, 2020 at 00:27 by Starym

It seems we won't be getting the PTR, DH and Necro sets, Seasonal buff etc today, as Blizzard have encountered some issues. As you want, you can check the the patch notes and Deadset's thoughts on the new changes. May 21, 2020 at 21:55 by Starym

Deadsets Thoughts on Season 21 Buff, New Sets and Items, Skill Changes and More

With the Season 21 PTR arriving in two days, we thought we'd poke our resident guide writer to see what his initial pre-PTR thoughts were on the large amount of new things being added in the season. He covers the new Demon Hunter and Necromancer sets, the seasonal mechanic, new legendary items, as well as other classes' skill and item changes and all of the above's impact on existing and new builds! Let's get right into it, as Deadset takes over: 4 comments May 19, 2020 at 19:58 by Starym

Blizzard's Diablo 4 release timeline has never been outright stated, and the most accurate piece of info on the matter we have is from BlizzCon, where we learned it was "not even Blizzard soon", implying quite a few more years of development were to come. However, the demo that was presented at the convention looked very polished, and even if it was a vertical slice, it was quite far along, which has prompted many discussions on the game's potential 2021 or 2022 release date. 5 comments May 19, 2020 at 04:53 by Starym

A new Diablo 3 patch will be available for playtesting starting May 21. Check out the official patch notes for details. 4 comments May 15, 2020 at 19:15 by Stan

New Old-school, Original Blizzard North Diablo 3 Screenshots

We already know a lot about the original, Blizzard North-lead Diablo 3 project that was being worked on directly after D2 and eventually cancelled, and today we have a whole lot of new screenshots from around the end of that development cycle. As PureDiablo have noticed, Oscar Cuesta, formerly a 3D artist at Blizzard north and Blizzard has shared some of his work on the game, noting that the models were low polygon and they were only using base color maps at the time, but the shots look pretty cool nonetheless. As we know, the original D3 was set in the High Heavens which were being invaded by demons, the game was supposed to be more MMO-like and was cancelled/restarted in 2005. If you want to know more, you can read the wiki article on the entire thing here. 2 comments May 12, 2020 at 19:31 by Starym

A lot of people played a lot more games during their respective countries' lockdowns, but for us ARPG/Diablo-like enthusiasts there's not really much choice out there that we haven't played through x billion times. So during an extended period of playing Diablo 3, Lost Ark and Path of Exile on something of a loop, I came to a very weird thought: would Blizzard releasing a "classic" version of Diablo 3 be a good idea? By classic I mean Vanilla D3, before the new legendary system, before greater rifts, ye olde Normal-Nightmare-Hell-Inferno paradigm. 9 comments May 11, 2020 at 07:47 by Starym

Fastest Greater Rift 150: 3 min 49 sec in Season 20 (4 Player)

Here comes another insane speed run at max GR level, as Zero Drama have pushed the limits of Season 20. 5-6k paragon levels, around 400 keys spent a day on XP runs and fishing, and a whole lot of effort later, they managed to get that rank 1 4 player speed run in GR 150 down to 3 minutes and 49 seconds. Congratulations! 2 comments May 09, 2020 at 19:46 by Starym

Diablo 4 Quarterly Update Coming Around End of June

Some news on the Diablo 4... well news, as the official twitter has commented that the second quarterly update is being "aimed" at the end of June! In the February update we heard and saw a lot about the UI and the Cannibal monster family, and got the great news that the game would be playable on controller on PC, with detailed explanations and images, so hopefully we get another great update in June as well. We also learned that the first encrypted build for Diablo 4 may have made its way to the Blizzard CDN earlier today, so check that story out as well. May 09, 2020 at 01:29 by Starym

Encrypted Diablo 4 Build 23041 Pushed to D4 Vendor CDN

Blizzard today pushed what appears to be the first encrypted Diablo 4 client to the Diablo 4 Vendor CDN under code name Fenris. May 08, 2020 at 17:25 by Stan

Activision Blizzard Q1 2020 Earnings Call: Shadowlands Still Planned for 2020

Blizzard had 32 million monthly active users in the first quarter of 2020. WoW's community increased further driven by both new and returning players. Shadowlands is still planned for 2020. 2 comments May 05, 2020 at 20:39 by Stan

Virtual Take Your Child to Work Day at Blizzard

Last Thursday was Take Your Child to Work Day and Blizzard initially planned on hosting on-campus activities for Blizzard's parents and their kids, but due to COVID-19, they had to get creative and host it online, so they've come up with some epic art tutorials with Samwise Didier and storytelling by Chris Metzen. Apr 24, 2020 at 23:09 by Stan

Here comes a very specific AI upscale, with the pre-Diablo 3 promo cinematic "Wrath" getting the treatment, but this time around the improvements might actually be detrimental. The cinematic was done in an anime cartoon style, and the sharper edges and generally cleaner look of the upscale might actually be a bad thing for this style of video. Wrath was released a week before Diablo 3 and follows the archangels in their fight against the demons and a certain red fellow you might be familiar with, and it's definitely worth a second look as it really is quite impressive.

Another reason why we wanted to take a look at this is because Wrath is a pretty great peak into what things might look like in the the recently leaked/confirmed/something Diablo Netflix animated series, as it is also being developed in the anime style as well. If it ends up looking even half as good as Wrath it's going to be amazing. Apr 21, 2020 at 20:21 by Starym

It seems it's the time of giving as Blizzard have added a double treasure goblin buff to the game, after the double XP and double rep ones for WoW! For the entirety of Season 20 (which will last at least another month, maybe more due to the quarantine conditions) you'll be seeing double, as each goblin will have a twin! The buff won't affect Insufferable Miscreants (aka the legendary goblin), bandit shrines and you won't be getting the benefit of double rainbow portals either, but it's still an amazing buff! 2 comments Apr 17, 2020 at 18:22 by Starym

Battle.net will be updated on April 15 to allow account passwords to exceed 16 characters, but it is important to note that Diablo III currently does not support passwords that and the plan is to fix the issue on June 9. 2 comments Apr 15, 2020 at 17:47 by Stan

Amazing Diablo 1 Trailer Remake With a Lot of New Footage

This was an unexpected treat, as Benmonor surprised us with Diablo Respawned, a full and actual true remake of the Diablo 1 trailer! From its start you might assume it's just a remaster with improved graphics (which we've already seen), but we not only get new parts added to the original, but also an entirely new second half! It's even more impressive when you find out that the project took him 40 days to make and he did it all alone. 3 comments Apr 13, 2020 at 19:28 by Starym

Blizzard on BlizzCon 2020 in Light of COVID-19

Blizzard have spoken out about BlizzCon plans related to the current pandemic, talking about the situation as it stands now and it seems there's no specific news to share just yet, but they are still working on the convention, and seem to hint at a possible online only version if necessary. 1 comment Apr 09, 2020 at 17:04 by Starym

As the wait for Diablo 4 continues, this old D3 teaser popping up once again really reminded me of that feeling of anticipation and hype that came with it, and it's just made the D4 wait even harder. Back before the problems Diablo 3 had, especially in Vanilla, this trailer and the gameplay demo were really looking good and I may or may not have watched both a ridiculous number of times - I mean, we were getting a new Diablo game after 12 years! Apr 09, 2020 at 16:57 by Starym

We have some impressive fan work on display here, as Jonathan Lee has put in a lot of effort on his Diablo 4 Assassin visual concept. The character really seems to fit in to the art style and atmosphere the game is going for, and there's a lot to check out - with concept art for the base class idea, additional sets and looks, weapons (including katars), traps and more!

While the main rumor/leak at the moment is that the final two D4 classes are in fact the Amazon and Paladin, we could still see the Assassin in the base game, and if not there will be plenty of additions to D4 after its launch, since the base game is like "the first chapter in a book".

Let's take a look at some of Jonathan's work and you can check out the rest of it here. 8 comments Apr 07, 2020 at 09:03 by Starym

25 Years of Warcraft Anniversary Video 8K Upscale

The last few Upscale videos haven't been that impressive, as the newer things they upgraded were already pretty good to start with, and I assumed this one would be the same. But, as the video has plenty of footage from older games, it's very much worth taking a look at, especially the comparison in the second half. Also it's a pretty good video in general, so why not check it out again: 6 comments Apr 05, 2020 at 17:38 by Starym

The Blizzard April Fools Archive and Highlights

After the recent re-emergence of the one day a year that's officially allowed to be funny and the official Blizzard patch notes that came with it, we wanted to go back and check out older editions of this now tradition. It turns out Blizzard actually has an archive for their April Fools posts, which is good news, but they also stopped updating it in 2015, which is bad news. 2 comments Apr 04, 2020 at 06:07 by Starym

Now, this isn't actually related to April Fools (and we'll be doing a roundup of all the crazy stuff related to that at the end of the day), but it seemed appropriate to get into the humorous mood of the day. Everyone will have probably seen this one at some point, as it's a very old one, but it's still one of the best memes/copypasta that's every been in WarCraft, and we have it reforged to boot! This latest version adds quite a bit to the classic, and itself has been around a while, but I'd dare say it's the best version of the joke so far.

Full disclosure: I've been looking for a reason to post this one for months now. Thanks April Fools! 4 comments Apr 01, 2020 at 18:52 by Starym

CHANGELOG

14 Apr. 2020: PoJ Tempest Rush Monk Speed Farming
- Added the guide.
14 Apr. 2020: SWK Tempest Rush Monk Speed Farming
- Fixed elemental damage recommendation and typos.
14 Mar. 2020: Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
- Item recommendations adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
14 Mar. 2020: Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Group Progression
- Guide adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
14 Mar. 2020: Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Introduction
- Guide adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
14 Mar. 2020: Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Skills and Runes
- Skills adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
14 Mar. 2020: Arachyr Firebats Witch Doctor Speed Farming
- Guide adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.
14 Mar. 2020: Helltooth Acid Cloud Witch Doctor Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
- Item recommendations adjusted to reflect the changes to Ring of Emptiness.

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Builds, Guides, and News for Diablo 3