Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.7 Incoming

With the plethora of content still streaming out for World of Warcraft it’s hard to imagine how Blizzard have time to keep up with Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. I’m kidding, they have the GNP of a small country.

Anyway, we were promised PvP before release, only to be told shortly before one of the worst opening nights in gaming history, that it would not be shipping with the game. It wasn’t too much of a worry for me as I wasn’t interested in it, but I know there were a fair few gamers out there that were not best pleased. So now here we have it, the PvP you have been clamouring for. Read on for some juicy morsels about it all.

For now it has been labelled “Dueling” (American spelling) but it seems to be what everyone was expecting.

• To duel another player, you’ll need to speak with Nek the Brawler at the inn in New Tristram
• Speaking with Nek will take you and your party to the Scorched Chapel, a new zone designed specifically for player combat
• This zone has custom geometry and features four different areas: the church, the graveyard, the river, and the lake
• Dueling currently supports up to four players in a Free-For-All format, which means you can battle your friends either
• one-on-one, three-player FFA, or a full four-player FFA
• If you die in the dueling world, you will be resurrected in the dueling zone
• Death is not permanent in the dueling zone, even for Hardcore characters
• You don’t take any durability damage while in the dueling zone
• When you’re done dueling you can take a portal out or use your Town Portal to return to town.

This isn’t the only change by any means, two of the classes (Monk and Wizard) are getting some buffs. First the Wizard.

The Wizard is seeing a damage buff to skills such as Arcane Orb, Blizzard, and Shock Pulse. We’re also making other small changes such as allowing Illusionist to reset the cooldown of Slow Time and increasing the slow effect of Temporal Flux from 30% for 2 seconds to 60% for 3 seconds.

Not forgetting the Monk.

The Monk is getting a big damage buff to all Spirit Spenders. One of the most common uses for Spirit is to recast Mantra of Conviction-Overawe for the 3 second bonus.  While this is totally legitimate, we want to provide alternate uses for your extra Spirit. As a result, we are greatly buffing all the damage-dealing Spirit Spenders to try and provide an alternate use for your Spirit.

I haven’t played the game in quite some time, so I can’t comment as to whether these will be well received changes. I am sure if you go to the Blizz forums you will easily find a thread or two on the incoming balance alterations. As is always the case  with balance, you can’t please everybody, but I agree with Blizzard when they say too many changes can do more harm than good.

There are plenty more modifications including crafting recipes, new gems, changes in monster power, quality of life changes and more. If you want to look over the full list then head over to Blizzards site for the details. As anyone who has played their games will know by now, Blizz’s support for their titles is second to none, so expect much more to come in the future.