GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Diablo 3's Crazy New Set Bonus Being Dialed Way Back

The "no-set set" Legacy of Nightmares won't end up being as strong as previously indicated.

25 Comments

Among the announcements made during Diablo III's BlizzCon panel were the details of a new bonus for the Legacy of Nightmares set. It sounded incredibly powerful, and not long after going live on the Public Test Realm, Blizzard has announced it's reducing the bonus by a large amount.

A Set Dungeon, another new feature coming in 2.4.0
A Set Dungeon, another new feature coming in 2.4.0

As outlined in our story on the 2.4.0 patch last week, the redesigned version of Legacy of Nightmares is intended as an alternative to using other sets (which tend to provide some of the best possible bonuses). Provided you aren't receiving any other set bonuses, equipping this set's two rings would increase your damage by 800 percent and reduce damage taken by 4 percent for each Ancient item you have equipped. Suffice it to say, that's a significant bonus, and one that's dramatically more attractive than the existing version (more gold, a better chance to find magical items, and the occasional skeleton companion).

The next update for the PTR version of the game will tone this done significantly--the damage bonus will drop to 100 percent. That's closer to the 75 percent bonus that Blizzard had originally envisioned, but it wanted to try something much higher to see how it would go.

"One of the things that we use the Public Test Realm for is to test ideas out--sometimes even crazy ideas," senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng wrote on the Diablo forums today. "In our original images and communication, we had listed the bonus at a decidedly not-crazy 75 percent. But in the spirit of crazy ideas, we went live with 800 percent to give us a chance to gather data at radically different values and, eventually, find the value that’s best for the greatest number of our players.

"We need a lot of creative players testing the limits and the best way we could accomplish this was to turn it way overboard. Of course, drastic changes like this are inherent to what a PTR is used for, and players need to be prepared for these outcomes."

There's a technical explanation in the post that explains how the change compares with scaling in Greater Rifts if you're interested in the math. But the bottom line is Blizzard didn't "want Legacy of Nightmares to become required for top-tier builds."

"We want it to be a viable option among many," Cheng said. "We think Legacy of Nightmares is really going to shine in allowing lots of build variety for 'fun' builds. The last few patch cycles have seen a massive number of builds emerge that are focused on activities other than pushing Greater Rifts."

There's not yet a date for when the 2.4.0 patch--which adds new areas, among many other things--goes live, but you can try the in-development version of it now on the PTR.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 25 comments about this story