D2R Ladder PTR with 2.4 changes - Patch notes and changes summarised here.

So let's say it is 105 (ish) SoJ to spawn Dclone.

With six of the lame 'progress tiers' or whatever they're calling them, that means:

105/6 = 17.5

So if you wanted to know how close you were to him walking, or to the next tier, you could be off by as much as 17-18 SoJ. Why would they do this...

Also interesting to see that they've decided to also butcher the original phrasing of 'sold to merchants' and used 'sacrificed to Diablo' (???). Makes it so much less mysterious than before.

And it's also 'An item has been...' - this to me indicates they are deffo going to be changing the trigger item from

Stone of Jordan to something else in the future.

Elfwine wrote: 2 years ago

Am I doing something wrong? PTR bug already?

image.png

Now I got it, we are testing the Ladder here and the new runewords only works for ladder. So with the pre-made characters you cant' make the new runewords. All clear now.

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

So let's say it is 105 (ish) SoJ to spawn Dclone.

With six of the lame 'progress tiers' or whatever they're calling them, that means:

105/6 = 17.5

So if you wanted to know how close you were to him walking, or to the next tier, you could be off by as much as 17-18 SoJ. Why would they do this...

Also interesting to see that they've decided to also butcher the original phrasing of 'sold to merchants' and used 'sacrificed to Diablo' (???). Makes it so much less mysterious than before.

And it's also 'An item has been...' - this to me indicates they are deffo going to be changing the trigger item from

Stone of Jordan to something else in the future.

Actually, looking into it a bit further, it seems like every message happens 4 times before he walks.

Let's say it takes 120 SoJs (previous max). Let's also say 1 and 6 (0 and spawn) only happen once. For 6, that's true, for 1 I'm not sure, seems like it though.
Then that's basically 120 SoJs over 4 stages or 30 SoJs per stage. At 4 messages per stage, that would imply one message every 7th-8th SoJ tops.

The problem is...I've sold 20+ twice now in one bunch and got no message, in two different stages. It still went to the 4th in that stage afterwards (eventually), before moving on to the next stage.

So based on that, things are either randomized, broken or they actually increased the number of SoJs needed.

With the changes to multishot,

Guided Arrow and

Strafe, physical bowazon viability for progressing through the game is much improved. BIS weapon is still

Windforce, but with

Strafe getting bonus to attack rating it makes that part of a merc's Faith or Mist weapon moot. Obv there is IAS from Faith that helps if you need it for a breakpoint, but it feels like a2 merc with might aura and reaper is better, though slower if you are rushing through content. pbowzon with Enigma instead of Fortitude seems much more viable with all the extra damage though.

You shouldn't need it for the breakpoint. At least not with

Strafe. Get a might merc with Pride and be happy. Beats the hell out of A1 mercs.

Reaper's isn't worth it, sadly. Was running that for a while but even on live (so before the massive

Strafe buffing), everything dies before the merc ever even comes close. Especially with a

Windforce because the 1 in 100 mobs that doesn't die right away is knocked away from your merc anyways so it still won't proc.
Now though.. Pride always up, let the merc deal with the first couple mobs to get might up, enjoy!

Curious to see how well it really plays out on live. Should be fairly good.
Right now, with all the changes but the crap PTR gear and a few lvls less, my PTR zon still does just barely less dmg than my live zon does.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Teebling wrote: 2 years ago

So let's say it is 105 (ish) SoJ to spawn Dclone.

With six of the lame 'progress tiers' or whatever they're calling them, that means:

105/6 = 17.5

So if you wanted to know how close you were to him walking, or to the next tier, you could be off by as much as 17-18 SoJ. Why would they do this...

Also interesting to see that they've decided to also butcher the original phrasing of 'sold to merchants' and used 'sacrificed to Diablo' (???). Makes it so much less mysterious than before.

And it's also 'An item has been...' - this to me indicates they are deffo going to be changing the trigger item from

Stone of Jordan to something else in the future.

Actually, looking into it a bit further, it seems like every message happens 4 times before he walks.

Let's say it takes 120 SoJs (previous max). Let's also say 1 and 6 (0 and spawn) only happen once. For 6, that's true, for 1 I'm not sure, seems like it though.
Then that's basically 120 SoJs over 4 stages or 30 SoJs per stage. At 4 messages per stage, that would imply one message every 7th-8th SoJ tops.

The problem is...I've sold 20+ twice now in one bunch and got no message, in two different stages. It still went to the 4th in that stage afterwards (eventually), before moving on to the next stage.

So based on that, things are either randomized, broken or they actually increased the number of SoJs needed.

Alright, one last (for now) update:
Another few cycles later, the 4 per stage is not set in Stone.
Also getting 3 and 5 now.

So bottom line:
The counter is either randomized or broken. Either way, there's no point in even trying to figure out exact numbers based on that (even more so considering the time investment with just 1 SoJ).
Bummer. Was really hoping for something at least slightly better here..but as is, that's basically removing the IP search (which is great, yes) but is making the entire remainder of the "waiting game" just worlds worse than it was in the OG days.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Alright, one last (for now) update:
Another few cycles later, the 4 per stage is not set in Stone.
Also getting 3 and 5 now.

So bottom line:
The counter is either randomized or broken. Either way, there's no point in even trying to figure out exact numbers based on that (even more so considering the time investment with just 1 SoJ).
Bummer. Was really hoping for something at least slightly better here..but as is, that's basically removing the IP search (which is great, yes) but is making the entire remainder of the "waiting game" just worlds worse than it was in the OG days.

I would say broken. In the one game where I got a spawn, I saw 4 instances of the "terror is about to be unleashed..." flavor, and then randomly dclone at

Rakanishu with no walk message. And I've never seen the slash command say anything other than "terror is about to be unleashed...."

So, you know. Pretty horrible.

Also really want to slap whoever gave the green light to a

Sacred Armor being the 4os elite base on the bases mule. Like really, really hard.

cristobal03 wrote: 2 years ago

Also really want to slap whoever gave the green light to a

Sacred Armor being the 4os elite base on the bases mule. Like really, really hard.

Well, using the

Ancient Armor for fort is still a lot less painful than using the non-

Eth, non-elite polearms...

I'm honestly very much starting to doubt Blizzard's whole claim of "yeah, we have tons of people on the team actively playing d2!".

Since PTR ended yesterday im really hoping 2.4 and ladder both go live next week. reeeeeeee