Diablo 3 PTR Receives Huge New Update, Brings Buffs Galore

Blizzard Entertainment has deployed patch 2.6.1 for Diablo 3 on the Public Test Realm for PC and it brings a number of changes. There are numerous buffs and changes to classes like the Necromancer.

Though this isn’t the final patch, it still shows the direction that Blizzard is aiming for. Those who want to try out the Necromancer changes have to buy the Rise of the Necromancer pack in the base game instead of the PTR.

Among the buffs included are the Barbarian’s Bloodshed now dealing damage that’s equal to 20 percent of recent Critical Hits on enemies within 20 yards in every second; the Crusader’s Limitless effect now increasing Blessed Hammer’s damage to 640 percent and dealing damage within 20 yards; the Necromancer now being able to cast Bone Armour while moving and without consuming Essence; and several changes to class-specific Legendary items and Gear Sets.

You can check out part of the patch notes below or view the full list here for more information.

Diablo III Update 2.6.1 PTR Patch Notes

Classes

• Barbarian Skills
  • Battle Rage
    • Bloodshed
      • Has been redesigned:
      • Deal damage equal to 20% of your recent Critical Hits to enemies within 20 yards every 1 second.
      • Note: Bloodshed caused performance issues when encountering high enemy density, particularly when combined with Whirlwind, Pain Enhancer, and Gem of Efficacious Toxin.
• Crusader Skills
  • Blessed Hammer
    • Limitless
      • Has been redesigned:
      • Increase the damage of Blessed Hammer to 640% weapon damage as Holy and increase its area of effect by 20 yards.
      • Note: The extra projectiles created by this rune were causing performance issues in cases with high enemy density.
• Necromancer Skills
  • Command Skeletons
    • Commanding your Skeletal Warriors will break crowd control effects on them
    • Skeletal Warriors will no longer die after taking too many hits
    • Design Philosophy: When we were first designing Command Skeletons, we wanted to capture the feeling of being an undead commander by having skeletons regularly spawn around the Necromancer and charge into battle during combat. It created a cool visual, but as the class evolved through Set bonuses and Legendary powers, it became clear that this visual began to hinder gameplay for some builds. Skeletal Warriors now have the same defenses as all other pets in the game.
  • Devour
    • Voracious
      • Resource cost reduction stacks granted from this rune will now stack and are no longer overridden from multiple casts.
  • Simulacrum
    • Added a glow to the skill icon to indicate when Simulacrum is active.
  • Skeletal Mage
    • This skill will now display the duration of the oldest mage raised as a buff in addition to the total number of mages active
    • Design Philosophy: This change is largely to provide transparency to players on the duration of their mage armor. This will be especially useful to players using the Bones of Rathma set. It’s our goal that players will no longer feel compelled to refresh their Skeletal Mage counter when they’re already at max.
  • Bone Armor
    • Essence cost removed.
    • Can now be cast while moving.
  • Army of the Dead
    • Frozen Army
      • The pulsing damage from this rune has been spread out
      • Design Philosophy: This was done to ensure enemies within range are evenly hit and to better align with the visual. This will result in more targets being hit more consistently for the stated weapon damage amount.
• Necromancer Passives
  • Fueled By Death
    • The movement speed bonus from this passive can now exceed the 25% cap
• Witch Doctor Skills
  • Soul Harvest
    • Adding a stack or refreshing Soul Harvest now refreshes all stacks of Soul Harvest.
• Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue which prevented Army of the Dead from sometimes triggering when the player is immediately afflicted by a monster’s crowd control after casting it
  • Fixed an issue where enemy monsters could heal themselves when striking another monster afflicted by Leech
  • Fixed a bug which caused Skeletal Mages to sometimes spawn up in the air
  • Fixed an issue where the firewall left behind by Arcane Orb – Scorch was not dealing damage
  • Fixed an issue which caused Skeletal Mages to lose their target when players used Command Skeletons to attack the same target
  • Fixed an issue which caused connection issues when players used a channeling skill while attempting to force move at the same time