PTR 2.7.3 : Nouvelles modifications pour les Cauchemars retentissants, les Failles supérieures...

1. Seasons

New Season Theme: Season 26 introduces the Echoing Nightmare, an optional and rewarding end-game challenge where players fight within the memories of Nephalem who fell in a Greater Rift. Today’s Nephalem must stand their ground until they are inevitably Overwhelmed or defeated. Players must collect a Petrified Scream from defeated Greater Rift Guardians to gain entry to the Echoing Nightmare. Transmuting a Petrified Scream in Kanai's Cube summons a portal that players can enter to face the horrors of the Nephalem's past.

Season Theme Details:

• Petrified Screams and the Echoing Nightmare can only be accessed with seasonal characters.
• Only one player is required to transmute a Petrified Scream to open an Echoing Nightmare in a multiplayer game.
• Similar to a boss encounter, all players in a multiplayer game must accept a prompt to enter.
• While within an Echoing Nightmare, the difficulty scales as players progress in the encounter. Players can progress faster by defeating monsters quickly.
• Players receive the following rewards upon completing an Echoing Nightmare: EXP, Legendary Items, Blood Shards, Gems, and a new Legendary Gem, Whisper of Atonement.
• The Whisper of Atonement is a Legendary Gem used exclusively for Augmenting Ancient Legendary items. It drops pre-ranked based upon player's performance in the Echoing Nightmare.

Echoing Nightmare Updates

• Rare monsters now spawn.
• Meteors now fall from the sky.
• Hellish Machinations now appear, which spawn streams of Exploding Lunatics.
• Rift Guardians now spawn.
• Increased the frequency of which monsters spawn.
• Updated the Shadow Clone explosion to better reflect the area of effect.
• The exit timer has been increased to 60 seconds.
• Increased the possible rank a Whisper of Atonement can drop to 125 based on the Tier completed.
• Monsters in Echoing Nightmares can no longer be Frozen, Stunned, Rooted or Knocked Back.
• Fixed a bug that caused Conduit Shrines to deal less damage than intended.

Developer's Note *3/17: These changes are intended to address feedback from the community by dialing up the chaos inside of Echoing Nightmares. 

Developer's Note: This is our first Seasonal Theme that introduces a new activity to the game. In the Echoing Nightmare, players will experience an intense, densely packed, increasingly challenging event that stretches their ability to stay in the fight as long as possible. We found inspiration in Orek's warning, "Many nephalem have stood where you are now, but few succeeded in overcoming the trials." The Echoing Nightmare explores what happened to those Nephalem who did not succeed.

2. Greater Rift Updates

Orek's Dream: Greater Rifts have a small chance to roll as Orek's Dream. These dreamlike rifts have a curated list of maps and monster compositions.

• 3 maps have been added and 2 maps have been removed from the Greater Rift pool.
  • Added: Fields of Misery, Desolate Sands and Briarthorn Cemetery
  • Removed: Sewers of Caldeum, and Hidden Aqueducts
• The probability of Greater Rift maps has been adjusted.
• The probability of monster groups has been adjusted.
• The following monsters have been adjusted to grant more progression and EXP within Greater Rifts.
  • Blazing Guardians
  • Smoldering Guardians
  • Frost Guardian
  • Noxious Guardian
  • Shock Guardian
  • Blood Clan Spearman
  • Dark Moon Clan Impaler
  • Moon Clan Impaler
  • Blood Clan Impaler
  • Ice Clan Impaler
  • Hell Witch
  • Vile Temptress
• Players can speak to Orek to close an active Greater Rift. This option is only available when in a single player game.
• Further increased the progression granted by some monsters in Greater Rifts.
• Additionally, increased the progression granted by Fallen Shaman, Fallen Conjurer, Fallen Prophet and Fallen Firemage.
• Added a new visual effect upon entering an Orek's Dream.
• Updated the Orek's Dream vignette to be more pronounced.

Developer's Note *3/17: We've continued to tweak the progress given by some monsters to make them more desirable to confront in Greater Rifts. Additionally, we've heard feedback from some players that it wasn't apparent when they entered an Orek's Dream, so we've added additional visual effects. 

Developer's Note: We wanted to improve the Greater Rift experience through quality of life updates, balance changes and addressing community feedback. We reviewed all of the maps and monsters that appear in Greater Rifts and reworked the probabilities overall to make sure players spend more time with the content they enjoy. Less spaghetti and more chickens.

4. Item Changes

Barbarian

• Legacy of Raekor (4-piece Bonus): Furious Charge gains the effect of every rune and deals 1000% increased damage. For every 1% Life you are missing, the damage of your Ancient Spear is increased by 2%.
• Legacy of Raekor (6-piece Bonus): Hitting enemies with Furious Charge or Weapon Throw increases the damage of your next Ancient Spear by 5500% and causes it to release multiple spears from its target. This effect stacks and is consumed from each released spear. This can only consume a maximum of 5 stacks at a time. This effect stacks and each spear throw consumes a maximum of 5 stacks.
• Arreat's Law: Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear deal 150-200% increased damage.
  • Weapon Throw generates up to 25 additional Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit. The generated Fury can go above the maximum cap by 200 Fury.
  • Ancient Spear refunds up to 25 Fury based on the distance of the enemy hit and resets your Fury cap to its base maximum.
• The Three Hundredth Spear: Increase the damage of Weapon Throw and Ancient Spear by 150-200%. The attack speed of Weapon Throw is increased by 200%.
• Skular's Salvation: Increase the damage of Ancient Spear by 150-200%. If your Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss hits 5 or fewer enemies, the damage is increased by 100%.

Developer's Note *3/17: We've added additional Weapon Throw buffs to give players more build options when playing the reworked Legacy of Raekor set. We've also updated Arreat's Law to allow players to reach new levels of Fury.

Developer's Note: We reworked Raekor’s Legacy to give the set its own identity. It felt natural to the team to infuse the charging fantasy of Raekor’s Legacy with the Barbarian’s ranged skills.

Crusader

• Thorns of the Invoker: The attack speed of Punish and Slash are increased by 100% and deal 67,500% of your Thorns damage.
• Norvald's Fervor: Gain 200% increased damage while using Steed Charge and for 5 seconds after it ends.

Developer's Note: Norvald's Fervor is overperforming across multiple sets. We want to bring its power down, but we are Increasing the utility of Thorns of the Invoker to compensate.

Monk

• All Mystic Allies spawned by Inna's Mantra 6-piece bonus now have their duration refreshed with each attack.
• Mystic Ally - Fire Ally mini allies now have Passability.

Developer's Note *3/17: We've made improvements to Mystic Ally that should make the skill feel more fluid and less clunky at times.

• Bindings of the Lesser Gods: Enemies hit by your Cyclone Strike take 150%-200% more damage from your Mystic Ally for 5 seconds.

Developer's Note: We're happy with the gameplay of Inna's Mantra Monks, but the Fire build is overperforming, so we removed the Fire Ally bonus from the Bindings of the Lesser Gods.