Diablo 3 Season 20 is coming later today bringing a whole host of new content to the game across PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.
Thought players might be itching to get their hands on Diablo 4, the release date is still some months and years away. So for the time being, we'll have to make do with a brand new season for Diablo 3.
This time around though, the developers say they have a brand-new Season buff, three brutally feral new class sets, and a handful of item reworks coming in the latest update.
No doubt it should keep players occupied for the next three or so months. Without further ado, read on for everything you need to know ahead of Diablo 3 Season 20 going live.
What time does Diablo 3 Season 20 Start?
Season 20 has a scheduled start date of March 13, 2020, but there's a different start time depending on what platform you're playing on.
Blizzard has confirmed that Season 20 will start at 5 pm local time, regardless of where you live across the world.
On PC, Season 20 begins Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. PDT in North America, 5:00 p.m. CET in Europe, and 5:00 p.m. KST in Asia.
However, for those wanting to know when Season 20 goes live on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, there's a different time altogether.
Seasons 20 will go live for all console players globally Friday, March 13 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
That's regardless of where you live. This, unfortunately, means that for players in the UK and Europe, the season won't start until around 1 am GMT on March 14.
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The new season is called 'Season of the Forbidden Archives' and Blizzard has already revealed some of the games new content additions and quality-of-life changes in a recent blog post.
One of the big takeaways from the blog was that throughout Season 20 all players will benefit from the ability to equip three additional Legendary powers that will not be restricted to their usual categories.
."While normally a player can equip one power each from the Weapon, Armor, and Jewelry categories, Season 20 players can mix and match between all three!" Blizzard explained.
"This might allow you to run two Weapon powers with one Armor power. Or perhaps you might choose to run three Amulet powers instead. The choice is yours, and we’re as eager as you are to experiment with the new build opportunities this creates!"
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The blog also highlighted what cosmetics players can expect to acquire for the next few months.
As with any new season, it's a win-win for players old and new because the team are once again re-introducing previous Seasonal rewards to make them available to players who may have missed out.
For Season 20, this means awards originally available from Season 8 are returning to the Season Journey.
And for those who complete the entirety of the Season Journey, you'll also be able to earn the Teganze Warrior Portrait Frame and Bat pet, seen below.
Likewise, there's once again another seasonal conquest rotation. As of March 13 the following seasonal conquests will go live:
• Curses!/Stars Align, pick any Cursed Chest event that requires killing monsters and defeat over 350 or more at level 70 on Torment X or higher.
• Push your way to Greater Rift level 75 to complete Divinity/Lionhearted.
• For the fiercest demon slayers, Boss Mode/Worlds Apart is a speed challenge where you’ll need to eliminate the following bosses at level 70 and Torment X in under twenty minutes:
- The Skeleton King
- The Butcher
- Zoltun Kulle
- Ghom
- Cydaea
- Rakanoth
- Diablo
- Adria
- Queen Araneae
- Maghda
- Belial
- Siegebreaker Assault Beast
- Azmodan
- Izual
- Urzael
- Malthael
Diablo 3 Season 20 Class Sets
There's also a rotation on class set rewards for Season 20.
Once again, players who completing Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the Season Journey will be rewarded with three of Haedrig’s Gifts.
Each Gift contains a few pieces from one of your Class Sets and players can only unlock one Class Set in this manner per Season across Hardcore and Non-Hardcore.
Also for those unaware, the set you receive depends on the class of the character you’re playing when you open each Haedrig’s Gift. To collect a full Class Set, you’ll need to open all three on the same character.
Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 20:
- Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
- Crusader – Seeker of the Light
- Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
- Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
- Necromancer – Trag’Oul’s Avatar
- Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
- Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana
You can take a look at the new class sets in the image below.
Diablo 3 Latest Patch Notes
Below you will find the final patch notes for the most recent update to Diablo 3. This is Patch 2.6.8. which was released March 3.
These changes apply to both PC and Console versions of Diablo 3 unless otherwise noted.
General
- Infernal Machines and Organs are now subject to vacuum pick-up
- Crafting plans from Bounty Caches are now guaranteed to drop unless all plans have been learned
Seasons
A new Season Theme has been added for Season 20, the Season of the Forbidden Archives:
- For the duration of Season 20, all slots in Kanai's Cube will be able to select Legendary powers from Weapon, Armor, or Jewelry
- This means you could select three Armor powers, three Weapon powers, three Jewelery powers, or any other combination thereof across all categories
- Items are not self-additive or multiplicative (meaning, you cannot stack multiples of the same item's power)
- Once the Season has ended and characters roll over to Non-Season, players will have all currently active powers in their Kanai's Cube reset
- Developer's Note: As we outlined in our Developer Insight blog, we want to continue to get creative (and maybe a little crazy) with the Season Themes and powers we add to the game. We heard from some players that they preferred themes that made your character directly feel more powerful rather than needing to focus on the environment around you. If that describes you, then the Season of Forbidden Archives should be right up your alley, and we're really interested to see how this changes the game for Season 20.
- Two new Seasonal rewards are available for players who fully complete the Season 20 Journey, including a new portrait frame and pet
Classes
Crusader
- Developer's Note: We're not convinced that this change has fully reigned in Crusader performance to be more in line with other classes. We'll be continuing to keep an eye on overall Crusader performance (as well as performance among the other classes) in 2.6.8 and beyond.
- Heaven's Fury
- The animation for the Fires of Heaven rune can no longer be cancelled early.
Witch Doctor
- Spirit Barrage (Phantasm)
- The periodic attacks from Spirit Barrage (Phantasm) are now twice as slow, but twice as powerful
- Developer's Note: We rolled this change back between PTR and Live as it was creating additional bugs. We may consider re-exploring this option in the future if we find this adjustment is still needed.
Items
Developer's Note: With Patch 2.6.8, we're adding three(!) new class sets with similar goals to those we included in the previous patch. Each set was designed primarily with boosting long-requested skills and play styles we lifted directly from community feedback. Frenzy, Spirit Barrage, and Hydra were requests that offered a lot of opportunity for gameplay exploration, and we're looking forward to seeing what players do with these new tools at their disposal. Additional changes to associated supplemental Legendaries have been included to round out these builds.
Mantle of Channeling
- The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun
Barbarian
- New Class Set: Horde of the Ninety Savages
- 2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared, Frozen, or Stunned Enemies take double damage.
- Developer's Note: The callout that Stun may be the best fit for this set bonus was definitely heard, but we didn't want to take away other potential builds enabled by experimenting with Fear or Frozen. We hope this opens up a variety of options for Barbarians to explore!
- 4-Piece Bonus: Each stack of Frenzy reduces damage taken by 6%. Frenzy lasts twice as long.
- 6-Piece Bonus: Frenzy deals 1000% increased damage per stack.
- Undisputed Champion
- Frenzy gains the effect of every rune and deals 300-400% increased damage.
- Bastion's Revered
- Frenzy now stacks up to 10 times and hits an additional time per stack. Each additional hit will chain to any enemies within 15 yards and the damage is split between all affected enemies.
- New Class Set: Mundunugu's Regalia
- 2-Piece Bonus: Big Bad Voodoo now follows you and lasts twice as long.
- 4-Piece Bonus: Gain 60% damage reduction for 30 seconds when you enter the Spirit Realm.
- 6-Piece Bonus: Spirit Barrage deals 20000% increased damage plus an additional % equal to 5 times your Mana Regeneration/Second.
- Developer's Note: We found this set was overperforming at the highest end, but we also wanted to maintain its capabilities at early gearing stages. The addition of a base multiplier and reducing the effectiveness of the Mana Regeneration bonus should accomplish this goal.
- The Barber
- Instead of dealing direct damage, your Spirit Barrage now accumulates on the target. When you stop casting, it explodes dealing 225-250% 400-500% of the accumulated damage to all enemies within 15 yards.
- Is now classified as a Ceremonial Knife, with a base 1.4 attack speed
- Gazing Demise
- Spirit Barrage gains the Phantasm rune. Each active Phantasm lasts twice as long, increases the damage of Spirit Barrage by 40-50% 100-150%, and also increases the attack rate from Manitou spectres.
- Ring of Emptiness
- You deal 250-300% increased damage to enemies affected by both either your Haunt and or Locust Swarm.
- New Class Set: The Typhon's Veil
- 2-Piece Bonus: Double the duration of Hydras and increase the number of heads on multi-headed Hydras by two.
- 4-Piece Bonus: Damage taken is reduced by 8% for each Hydra head alive as long as there is one available. Each time you take damage, a Hydra heads dies. Heads cannot die more than once every 2 seconds
- 6-Piece Bonus: Hydras deal 1200% 1300% increased damage for each Hydra head alive.
- Developer's Note: We've continued to tilt more of the power for Hydra in favor of the 6-piece set bonus and away from the supplemental Legendary items.
- Serpent's Sparker
- You may have one extra Hydra active at a time and they deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
- The Magistrate
- Frost Hydra Your Hydras now periodically cast Frost Nova and deal 450-600% 250-300% increased damage.
- Etched Sigil
- The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.
- Deathwish
- The bonus granted by this item now occurs 1 second after channeling has begun.
- Fixed an issue where the set bonus did not increase damage reduction when using Devour – Voracious
- Fixed a bug where Threatening Shout (Grim Harvest) would not activate when enhanced by the Horde of the Ninety Savages set bonus
- Corrected the spelling of “Imperius” on the flavor text for several pieces of the Aegis of Valor set
- Fixed an issue where the bolts cast by Fist of the Heavens – Divine Well failed to zap enemies
- Fixed an issue where In-geom was not properly dropping for Demon Hunters
- Fixed a bug where Arcane Torrent would get an extra damage multiplier from Etched Sigil and Deathwish
- Fixed a bug where Hydra (Frost Hydra) was getting a damage bonus instead of Attack Speed bonus from its owner's Attack Speed; this rune now benefits from Attack Speed in the same manner as other Hydra runes
- Fixed a bug with Bastion's Revered where it would not properly benefit from Convention of Elements
- Fixed a bug where Big Bad Voodoo would not properly follow its owner through zones when utilizing the new 2-Piece set bonus
- Fixed a bug where Hydras would have a short delay after being summoned
Bugs
Several issues with adding/removing players to group and starting new games as a group have been resolved
Captain Crimson's Trimmings
Barbarian
Crusader
Demon Hunter
Wizard
PTR Specific
Note: The following issues were only live on the PTR, but we're including the fixes here for visibility and to indicate intended functionality on live.
Source: Read Full Article
Wizard
Witch Doctor
- 2-Piece Bonus: Double the effectiveness of all Shouts. Feared, Frozen, or Stunned Enemies take double damage.