Ladder Season 14 and Patch 3.2

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article ... oming-soon
New Season starts on 2026-05-23T00:00:00   This timestamp has been automatically converted to your local date/time for convenience. The format is DD/MMM/YYYY, HH:MM am/pm. This is based off your browser time.

yaaa for Miasma Chains

Removed casting delay.
Added a limit of active chains that starts at 5 and increases to 10.
Fixed an issue where chains would break when using

Blade Warp.

I hope its easier to do chains. I dropped it because very often it put the chain in front of me or on top of an enemy while i wanted them to put on Ground in the backline of enemies for full aoe. I dont know if this is a bug or intended because of, like auto aiming for controllers in terms of streamlining the diablo versions, or such?

I don't want to speak for the changes just yet as I'm still digesting them. But I will say I appreciate the Developer's Notes sprinkled through out the PTR Patch Notes. It nice to see them sharing their goals and intentions on certain aspects, rather than leaving us guessing their motives.

Greys_Prey_Two wrote: 3 hours ago

I hope its easier to do chains. I dropped it because very often it put the chain in front of me or on top of an enemy while i wanted them to put on Ground in the backline of enemies for full aoe. I dont know if this is a bug or intended because of, like auto aiming for controllers in terms of streamlining the diablo versions, or such?

It appears to be intentional.

Blizzard wrote:

The original design of the Miasma abilities was to have the slightly awkward mechanical approach of placing most of the damage in the cloud.
After addressing the bugs, our team felt the mechanics did not sufficiently reach this threshold and decided to introduce damage reduction. Based off community reception, we have opted to keep most of the previous damage values instead and watch to see if just the bug fixes reach the mechanical awkwardness we are aiming for. We will be keeping a close eye on Miasma feedback to see if future iterations are required to address how magic damage functions and how the warlock fits into that puzzle.

So sad about Curse procs... So will the best demon now be a unique cursed dark lancer?

Also sad about

Conviction, but I understand that was insanely OP. Waheed!! Break time is over!

Still no mention of a fix to miasma chains so it actually damages the target as well.

But hey, at least we get "Fixed an issue where Chronicle rewards would un-equip when joining a new game or on character Death." so .. that just got way more interesting to finish up completely.

Whole lot of backtracking on lock nerfs though...

"Developer’s Note: Based off feedback from the PTR, we took another look at the decision to fix the bug for durability loss on

Echoing Strike. While it was a bug, the feedback made us re-examine the impact to player's decisions around weapon choices. After discussions, we decided to revert the fix as the impact supported the intended fantasy of the skill while still fitting generally within the original vision."

So ES can still use ethereal weapons? Did not expect that.

I didn't play the PTR, did the uber ancients change much?

mikelessar wrote: 2 hours ago

"Developer’s Note: Based off feedback from the PTR, we took another look at the decision to fix the bug for durability loss on

Echoing Strike. While it was a bug, the feedback made us re-examine the impact to player's decisions around weapon choices. After discussions, we decided to revert the fix as the impact supported the intended fantasy of the skill while still fitting generally within the original vision."

So ES can still use ethereal weapons? Did not expect that.

Can still use and weapon dmg has more of an impact with the newly added buff to that. So it'll actually be even more of a bonus than it is now, offsetting at least some of the multiplicative -> additive fix.

It's as if a million

Zod cried out in

Terror and were suddenly silenced.

Insight (in ethereal

Archon Staff and

Cryptic Axe) is back on the menu, boys!
Brb, got to buy an arioc's

Well, as much as I don't love Blizz nerfing my OP characters, I think these are decent changes and Blizz was pretty thoughtful about what changes they undid, and listened to feedback.

Overall, good job Blizzard.

Looking at the patch notes, I think investing to get a unique or champion demon is probably pointless now. Instead the approach should be:

1) Go to

Terror zone with an affix you want, such as cursed

2) Load up with +skills and +demon skills charms to hit lvl 20

Bind Demon (they left soft skills counting towards demon bonuses like aura)

3) Bind a normal monster like a

Blunderbore or Spearwomen.

You end up with a demon with an aura, extra fast, extra strong etc.. plus the TZ modifier like cursed. Not to mention special skill like Bluderbore crushing blow.

The bigger nerf is just that you can't get

Conviction or

Fanaticism, but that is true with super uniques also.

Oh wait, I thought they got rid of

Fanaticism, looks like it's in still?

Might to

Concentration

Holy Fire to

Vigor

Blessed Aim to

Thorns

Holy Freeze to

Holy Freeze

Conviction to

Fanaticism

Fanaticism to

Fanaticism

Holy Shock to

Vigor

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

[..]
The bigger nerf is just that you can't get

Conviction or

Fanaticism, but that is true with super uniques also.

You can still get

Fanaticism.

I wish they gave the other classes some attention. Mosaic rework just going to be swept under the rug? Doesn't give me much motivation to play next season.

But if I don't play next season, nobody will get to see the shine of my rune portal...

So I guess the idea is to bind your terrorized P8 demon with cursed and

Fanaticism or

Conviction aura before the patch, assuming the demons don't disappear. Post patch may be difficult to bind a new one.

Dark Lancer or

Blunderbore... I wonder if Lister will still be good after the Amp Dam nerf (seriously, that seems like the only thing that makes "demon" build viable).

FerociousTerrier wrote: 2 hours ago

So sad about Curse procs... So will the best demon now be a unique cursed dark lancer?

Also sad about

Conviction, but I understand that was insanely OP. Waheed!! Break time is over!

For me it will be either

Blunderbore/Urdar with

Fanaticism or constantly cursing Amplify/

Lower Resist

Succubus from WSK or Hihlathak temple.

So pity they changed Lethargy by removing damage taken, making Coven runeword less suitable for my Bowazon and Summoner Druid. I've enjoyed it a lot .

Schnorki wrote: 1 hour ago

Can still use and weapon dmg has more of an impact with the newly added buff to that. So it'll actually be even more of a bonus than it is now, offsetting at least some of the multiplicative -> additive fix.

It's not a huge difference if you do the math.

Eth bonus ended up like +20% dmg on PTR, now it's going to be closer to +25%. The multiplicative fix was like a 90% dmg nerf.

not fixing the

Eth weapon bug, but instead fixing the achmel bug instead (which never had any impact in the game - just being funny and something else than hephaisto/dark lancer all day), *sigh*

varangium wrote: 1 hour ago

Well, as much as I don't love Blizz nerfing my OP characters, I think these are decent changes and Blizz was pretty thoughtful about what changes they undid, and listened to feedback.

Overall, good job Blizzard.

Looking at the patch notes, I think investing to get a unique or champion demon is probably pointless now. Instead the approach should be:

1) Go to

Terror zone with an affix you want, such as cursed

2) Load up with +skills and +demon skills charms to hit lvl 20

Bind Demon (they left soft skills counting towards demon bonuses like aura)

3) Bind a normal monster like a

Blunderbore or Spearwomen.

You end up with a demon with an aura, extra fast, extra strong etc.. plus the TZ modifier like cursed. Not to mention special skill like Bluderbore crushing blow.

The bigger nerf is just that you can't get

Conviction or

Fanaticism, but that is true with super uniques also.

Or just use 3

Tainted (even after their synergy is reduced). With an Infinity on your warlock, each of them will be doing more damage than a

Fireball sorc.