6.0 Patch Notes

[Game]

Hello everyone! After months of trial and error with the 5.1 beta patch, this is the end result. You will notice all of the 5.1 patch notes here as well as that patch never officially launched. This is probably the biggest patch we've EVER had so there are sure to be some bugs, but we will be monitoring very closely over the next 24 hours to get fixes uploaded quickly. The wait is over, here are your changes!


Annihilus 6.0 Changelog:


Major Changes:

• Ladder has been reset! Race your way learning the new content and the most efficient way to level. The first 3 players to reach Level 99 in Softcore and Hardcore will receive prizes. 2nd and 3rd place will receive 3000 Gold / 1500 Gold respectively, 1st place will receive 5000 Gold and we will discuss an additional reward when the time comes! Certain items that may provide a race advantage have temporarily been removed from the Gold Vendor, and will be re-added at a later time. All existing characters will be moved over to Non Ladder, they should still be perfectly functional but we will not be addressing any potential issues that come up with item changes. Sorry!


• Halloween has arrived! NPCs around town have dressed up for the occasion, and the monsters in Sanctuary are carrying Trick or Treat Bags with your name on it. Whether you get a Trick or a Treat from the bag is completely up to fate! There is also a limited edition Guts Effect on the Gold Vendor. This Effect will be removed from the Vendor when the Halloween Event ends, so grab it while you can!


• The Crucible has been completely reworked. After the first person enters, you have 10 more seconds for the rest of your party to come in, afterwards the Crucible is locked. This means nobody else can enter the Crucible, no matter what. If you town portal it will be a one way trip to town, with no portal back in. To proceed to the next level you must kill ALL monsters in the level, and the portal will automatically open to the next level. You are on a 30 minute timer, and dying is not allowed from anyone in the Crucible, or everyone will be kicked out. The game will give you occasional notices about the time remaining. There is now a bonus Level 17 with an extremely tough opponent. The timer ends after clearing Level 16, and others will not be kicked out if someone dies in Level 17, however there is still no way back in. Be sure to bring all of your defensive items and potions with you!


• Nephalem Trials have been opened. To access the Nephalem Trials you must be at least Level 95. The portal is found in Pandemonium Fortress, and by default you are limited to 1 Nephalem Trial a day, resetting at Midnight by the Server's time. You can use /time to see this. There is a "Token of Trials" that can be found in certain areas that can grant you a bonus Trial for that day, however you can only use 5 Token of Trials per day. Inside the Trial you will fight a randomly chosen 1 out of the 6 total Bosses (previously known as the Mark / Puzzle Bosses) You have 3 single use portals to the Boss's arena, so after 3 deaths you are done! Prepare carefully before going on!


• The Map System has been implemented. Maps will drop throughout Hell Mode, allowing you to right-click them in the Mysterious Cellar found in Harrogath to open 6 single use portals to a randomly generated map based on the Map item you found with a high density of monsters. Map monsters drops and difficulty scale based on the tier of the Map, Tier 1 being the easiest, while Tier 5 is the hardest. Each Map has its own unique Boss, who have chances to drop different Infernal Chests which open with a specified amount of High Runes (Vex+). Infernal Chests can include Maps, Orbs, Token of Trials, Essences, and Enchants. Map Bosses also have a very high chance to drop another Map item.


• Diablo Clone is no longer an "Event", meaning you do not fight him by selling the Diablo's Soulstone. You will now simply cube the Diablo's Soulstone in Act 4 to open a portal to the Phantasm of Terror. Diablo's Soulstone now only requires 3 Standards of Hell to create it.


• Multiple types of Orbs have been added and can drop all throughout Sanctuary, including in Normal Difficulty! There are many types of Orbs that can modify your items differently. These include: Orb of Chance, Orb of the Jeweler, Orb of Corruption, Orb of Alchemy, and Orb of Transmogrification.


• Essences have been added, and can drop all throughout Sanctuary in Hell Mode. Essences can be cubed with a rare item to re-roll that item completely, but guarantee it will spawn with a specific affix based on the Essence you used. This will be useful for getting rares that are potentially best in slot.


• Loot tables have been completely reworked. Uniques and sets were dropping way too often, especially in the endgame portals. Uniques will be much rarer now, but many endgame items that were very strong before have been toned down so vanilla uniques will be able to keep up and be used in certain situations. This rework also affects global item drops, such as Enchantments, Azathoth Organs, and the new Orbs / Essences / Maps. It will no longer feel like these items dropping are just a myth.


• Endgame item balance has been greatly modified. Many endgame have items have been toned down or changed completely, while certain items such as Corrupted Lightsabre has been reworked / buffed. All Resistances will now be much harder to come around on unique items, while rare items will shine bright here. Be sure you keep an eye on rares, as they have received some changes.


• Splash Damage has been completely reworked. It will now deal the damage of the skill that triggered it in a circle around you, instead of just dealing Normal Attack damage. This will greatly improve the effectiveness of slower but strong hitting skills. There is now a radius indicator as well.


• Defense now grants you Physical Resist specific to the monster dealing damage to you, making Defense a very useful stat. To balance around this, Physical Resist has been removed from the majority of items, and Defense granting abilities such as the Cold Armors and Holy shield have been lowered. Certain items will still have Physical Resist.


• The nasty ethereal bug that kept stacking Defense when cubing an ethereal item has been fixed. Because of this, you can now enchant and add effects to ethereal items.


• Damage cap / overflow has now truly been fixed. Many skills that seemed to be really weak or do no damage at all at higher levels will now do the proper amount of damage. Some examples of affected skills are Berserk, Dragon Strike, Strafe, Impale, and many more.


• Monster healthbars have been added! You can now see healthbars above all monsters without having to mouse over them. You can disable this under Extra Settings in the esc menu.


• You can now see a Monster's exact resistances when mousing over them. You will see 2 numbers for each type of resist, the number on the left is their total resistance, and the number in parenthesis to the right is their effective resistance against you, this number will take your resist piercing stats into consideration.


• Damage counters have been added! When dealing damage to a monster you will now see the EXACT amount of damage you deal, and will no longer have to rely on a lying character sheet. Normal damage will show up white, Critical / Deadly strikes will show up yellow, Crushing Blow will show up purple, Poison will show up green, and the largest amount of damage you have done over the last several seconds will show up orange. Damage dealt to you will also show up in red. Damage counters will also be toggleable in the Extra Settings.


• Increased Resolution code has been rewritten. This will fix many problems, for example certain UIs such as waypoints and trade screen being off center, and many more minor issues.


• The sprite limit has been removed. Objects, Players, Monsters, etc will no longer go invisible when there are a lot of missiles / sprites on the screen.


• Forest of the Duelist has been added! This is a special arena found near Gheed in the Rogue Encampment designed to make duels a little more balanced. To get in the Arena you will need the Admission to the Forest of the Duelist, which Gheed will sell you. While inside you take 70% less damage from all sources, your maximum life is increased by 100%, and you gain 100% Magic and Physical Resistances. However, all resistance piercing stats are only 25% effective.


• Forbidden Charms have been added! By using the power of an upgraded Neo Annihilus, you can use a limited amount of very powerful charms that can be found from all monsters in Hell for true customization of your character. Certain bosses such as the FF8 bosses have their own unique Forbidden Charms that cannot drop as a world drop.


• Auras and Curses that lower resistances will no longer only be 1/5 effective against monsters that are immune to that element, they will now apply full effect. This will make certain item only Auras such as Armor Penetration and Amplify Magic much more appealing. Numbers have been balanced for all Curses and Auras affected by this.


• Inventory has been expanded! 2 rows have been added to the Inventory.


• Mercenary Amulets have been added! They can drop anywhere in the game, and are only wearable by Mercenaries. There are multiple unique versions, including a very rare one. Mercenaries cannot wear normal amulets. Mercenaries now also deal 100% of their damage to Bosses, when it was previously just 25%.


• Normal and Nightmare Monsters have had their HP increased.


• End of Act Bosses, Endgame Bosses, and Crucible Monsters no longer have a chance to "Dodge" attacks, and now use a new mechanic that instead reduces all damage taken. This will allow skills that are slow but strong such as Berserk to not be at such a disadvantage.


• Skill Effects found at the Gold Vendor are no longer a separate skill, they will use the skill they are replacing to cast, meaning they will always deal the exact damage of the skill they replaced. For Example, If you have Exploding Cow Skill Effect (Exploding Arrow Effect) you will still use the skill Exploding Arrow to cast this. Because of this, any items that give a specific +skills to Exploding Arrow will now also benefit Exploding Cow, and you will not be hindering yourself by using a Skill Effect.


• Crushing Blow has been reworked. It now deals 2% (ranged) / 4% (melee) of the monster's current health against any monster. It is affected by Physical Resist and Total Damage Reduction.


• The world's strongest Monster is now accepting challenges at The Omega Pinnacle. He is unlike any other encounter, you will likely need to bring some friends.





Class Changes:


Amazon

• Multiple Shot Damage per Level has been decreased at earlier levels, and increased at later levels. This will be an overall net buff to end game Multiple Shot.


• Strafe Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been decreased, as it was simply way too strong after fixing the damage cap.


• Poison Javelin Damage Synergy % has been increased, and now has a flat duration.


• Plague Javelin Damage and Damage Synergy % increased, and poison duration has been lowered.


• Jab Damage % per Level increased.


• Impale coding reworked, should now do its correct damage.


• Valkyrie Life Synergy % has been lowered.


• Avoid / Dodge / Evoid no longer trigger an animation, so you cannot get interrupted by them during Jab / Fend.



Assassin

• Wake of Fire Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased.


• Wake of Inferno Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased.


• Charged Bolt Sentry Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased.


• Lightning Sentry Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased.


• Death Sentry Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased. Corpse Explosion damage lowered, it now deals 25%-50% of a monster's health instead of 40%-80%.


• Tiger Strike Damage % per Level drastically increased, now also gains flat Damage per Level. Added Dragon Claw as a Damage Synergy.


• Flurry Kick now gains flat Damage per Level, and Damage % per Level increased.


• Ambush now gains flat Damage per Level, and now has Flurry Kick as a Damage Synergy.


• Fists of Fire Damage per Level drastically increased.


• Claws of Thunder Damage per Level drastically increased.


• Blades of Ice Damage per Level drastically increased.


• Venom Damage per Level increased.


• Claw Mastery and Jack of all Trades no longer override each other, and can both be active at the same time.



Barbarian

• Shield Throw Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % increased.

• Seismic Leap now scales directly from the MAXIMUM damage of your weapon. It does not proc CTC or actually deal weapon damage, it just gains damage based on the damage of your weapon. An ideal weapon would be something with massive maximum damage, minimum damage does not matter.


• Berserk now reduces all damage received by a percentage instead of giving a chance to dodge, and now converts 95% of its damage to Magic.


• Double Throw now gains flat Damage per Level.


• Death Spear can now be used without a shield, and Damage Synergy % has been increased.



Druid

• Firestorm no longer has a cooldown, travels further and faster, and has 2 additional missiles.


• Armageddon's Damage over Time effect by fire left on the ground has had its damage increased, and the DoT now benefits from % + to Fire Skill Damage.


• Fire Claws has had its Damage Synergies changed to be more in line with Fire Skills, and Damage per Level has been increased.


• Eruption can now be used while Shapeshifted, and its duration has been increased.


• Raven Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been lowered, but now gains 100% of Druid's Physical Pierce instead of 50%.


• Grizzly's Damage per Level / Synergy has been increased. This will also affect Spirit / Dire Wolf damage, as they gain Damage per Level from Grizzly.



Necromancer

• Amplify Damage, Decrepify, and Lower Resist have all been re-balanced due to the 1/5 penalty removal.


• Bone Spear Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Bone Prison / Bone Wall flat Life increased, increased Life per Level, and increased Life Synergy.


• Corpse Explosion Damage has been decreased, it now deals 25%-50% of a monster's health instead of 40%-80%.


• Poison Dagger Damage per Level has been drastically increased, and the poison duration has been lowered.


• Poison Explosion Damage per Level has been drastically increased, increased Damage Synergy %, and radius has been increased.


• Poison Nova's Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been increased. Range has also been increased, and can be used on left click.


• Poison Maelstrom no longer requires a dagger, has increased Damage per Level, and has a shorter poison duration.


• Fire Golem no longer receives its summoner's +% to Fire Skill Damage, but still benefits from summoner's Fire Pierce.


• Fixed a nasty error causing Skeletal Power given by Skeletal Lich Form to not actually apply.


• Skeletal Burst damage now increases with Skeletal Power.



Paladin

• Smite now gains Damage per Level, and now has 2 Damage Synergies.


• Sacrifice now increases all damage taken by the Paladin instead of dealing damage directly to Life.


• Holy Shield now has Smite as a Synergy.


• Fist of the Heavens has been partially reworked. After the initial strike it now sends lightning to all nearby enemies, and the lightning shares all of the same Synergies as Fist of the Heavens. Less strength is required to remove the cooldown, and both Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Blessed Hammer's Damage bonus from Concentration has been increased by 50%. Damage Synergy % also increased.


• Fixed a bug preventing Vengeance from dealing ANY of its Lightning Damage. Vengeance Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been lowered to balance around this.


• Conviction and Searing Light has been re-balanced due to the removal of the 1/5 penalty.



Sorceress

• Firebolt Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Fire Ball Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Meteor Damage Synergy % has been increased, and now has a new Synergy for the Damage over Time effect. Damage over Time has been increased.


• Hydra Damage per Level and Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Pyroblast Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Flamestrike Damage Synergy % has been increased.


• Blaze Damage per Level has been increased, and Synergies have been reworked. Now also increases Velocity.


• Inferno Damage per Level has been increased, and Synergies have been reworked.


• Fire Wall Damage per Level has been increased, and Synergies have been reworked. Cooldown has been lowered, and can now be used on left click.


• Nova Damage per Level has been lowered at earlier levels, and increased at later levels. This will result in a net buff in the endgame.


• Energy Shield now takes resistances into consideration when damage is converted to Mana. This will result in a massive buff for Energy Shield tankiness, and the damage ratio may be looked at in the future if this is too strong.


• Lightning Mastery now benefits from items that give + to Lightning Skills.


• Cold Mastery now benefits from items that give + to Cold Skills.


• Blizzard Cooldown has been slightly lowered.





Item Changes:

• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused items to display the wrong Aura level they granted.


• Automods / Implicits can now appear on all magic and rare versions of the item.


• All Chest Armors and Belts now have automods / implicits. This means based on what type the item is (Dusk Shroud / Archon Plate / Shadow Armor etc) it will ALWAYS have a specific stat on it, even on magic and rare versions. These do not count towards one of the potential 6 affixes on rares.


• Necromancer Heads have new automods, such as Skeletal Power and Magic Resist.


• El'druin, the Sword of Justice has been buffed. The CTC skill damage has been drastically increased. Also fixed an issue that prevented +% to Magic Skill Damage from working with the CTC skills. The skill damage buff will affect both new and existing swords, but to get the stat buff on the sword it will need to be rerolled. All existing swords can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the sword, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker has been buffed. The CTC skill damage has been drastically increased. The skill damage buff will affect both new and existing swords, but to get the stat buff on the sword it will need to be rerolled. All existing swords can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the sword, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Frostmourne has been buffed. The CTC skill damage has been drastically increased. The skill damage buff will affect both new and existing swords, but to get the stat buff on the sword it will need to be rerolled. All existing swords can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the sword, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost. Only the Enhanced Damage % has been buffed, so if your sword is enchanted or a good roll you may not want to reroll.


• Flame Horizon has been buffed. The CTC skill damage has been drastically increased. The skill damage buff will affect both new and existing swords, but to get the stat buff on the sword it will need to be rerolled. All existing swords can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the sword, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost. Only the Enhanced Damage % has been buffed, so if your sword is enchanted or a good roll you may not want to reroll.


• Crown of the High Heavens has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Heaven's Champion has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. All enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Divinity has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. All enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Sanctuary's Balance has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Trag-Oul's True Guise has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Warmonger has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Corrupted Lightsabre has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Zephyr has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• Trickster's Mischief has been buffed. This will not affect existing items, but all existing items can be cubed once for a free reroll. This will save anything currently socketed into the item, but all enchants will unfortunately be lost.


• The Deadly Sin's Corpse Rain CTC will now deal more damage.


• Oblivion now properly negates lifesteal and will reliably drain life on hit.


• Mad Rush's Mad Rush Skill can now be used while Shapeshifted.


• All magic and rare Quivers will now always spawn with Replenish Quantity. This will not take up an affix slot, and it will not affect existing Quivers.


• Orb of the Jeweler can now be bought from the Gold Vendor.


• Token of Trials can now be bought from the Gold Vendor.




Monster Changes:

• Azmodan has moved to the real Realm of Sin, and his mechanics have been slightly changed. Sin Pool's hitbox is now accurate with where the pools are, and will tick every 4 frames.


• Fallen Malthael has found a new home.


• Tyrael's damage has been re-balanced.


• Uldyssian's damage has been re-balanced.


• Mechanized Archer's damage has been lowered.


• Mechanized Destroyer's damage has been lowered.


• The Swamp King no longer casts Acid Inject.


• Mistress of Pain's hitbox has been increased, and should no longer be invincible to certain skills such as Vengeance.


• Bahamut's ??? puzzle has had its hitbox increased, and should no longer be invincible to certain skills such as Vengeance.


• Due to bosses taking lower damage now, all Mythic bosses have had their heal slightly lowered.


• Mythic bosses will no longer have the shield effect around them as it can be distracting, they can still be identified by their purple name.


• FF8 bosses have had their chance to cast Teleport when damaged lowered.


• Various monster skills have had their damage lowered to remove 1 shot potential, this will hopefully make Hardcore a bit more viable.


• Fallen Shaman has had its Fire Ball damage slightly lowered.






Misc. Changes:

• Buff timers have been fixed, and now properly show their duration.


• All Teleport abilities (Teleport, Horadrim Teleport, and Abyss Blink) can now be used in Town.


• Experience gain has been lowered across the board. It is still higher then vanilla Diablo 2 for the vast majority of early - mid levels, and will still be higher even at the last levels due to monsters being higher level and there being more experience gain % items here.


• Magic Damage will now show orange in the character sheet.


• Asheara is now closer to the spawn point in Act 3.


• Armor Penetration aura range now scales with the level of the aura.


• Chance to dodge from items will no longer stack with Amazon Dodge passives.




THANKS AGAIN TO @xghozt55 aka Firehawk FOR HELPING US GET THIS FAR! This has definitely been a ridiculously crazy 2 man effort and we've gotten more done than I ever thought possible due to his hard work. Be sure you thank this guy when you run into him. We aren't done yet, 6.0 is just the beginning, We'll see you guys next time, enjoy the patch!

[Seekers]

First

EDIT: Great work, love this. Hype is real

[jurat]

ohhhhh!!!!!

[Asertos]

<3

[rrra]

Thank you very much!

[player]

Annihilus Jacta Est

[Rizzen]

Thanks

[SHAMANdur]

BRUTAL ! BIG thanks to both of you!
Cant wait for the patch and reset <3

[zeCook]

This looks sick! So many new things! Thank you guys for making this legendary game even better !

[rrra]

@Game is there any chance we could get shield throw changed to two (obviously higher) synergies instead of three? I'm just mathing this out and skill points will definitely be a big problem for that spec as it stands.

Every other damage skill in the combat tree only has two synergies. I don't think it's unreasonable for shield throw to be the same.

Instead of 10% (currently, higher now based on patch notes) each for shout, shield mastery and berserk, do 15% for 2 of those 3. I'd prefer shout and shield mastery, but no combination ruins my day. What matters is freeing up enough skill points so that Shield throw barbs don't have to choose between not having a fully maxed BO or not having fully maxed synergies given that there a lot of one pointers that you absolutely have to have.