Diablo III Patch 1.0.3 coming later today

In what looks to be one of the most significant post release patches for Blizzard’s behemoth Diablo 3, patch 1.0.3 brings a number of changes to the table. Significant changes are in store for loot drops as they relate to late game players entering and making their way through Inferno difficulty. This includes the ability for Item Level 63 loot drops to start showing up in Act 1 of Inferno, which previously wasn’t the case. Item Level 63 drops, or il63 for the shortened version, is essentially end game loot for Diablo, capable of producing the highest rolls for stats and certainly makes up the majority of the loot now topping the charts in both the Gold and Real Money Auction House at the moment.

Besides the changes to loot, Inferno Acts 2, 3, 4 are getting their overall difficulty lowered, which will most likely satiate a number of current players (myself included). There was a significant wall encountered upon leaving Act 1 going into Act 2, which saw a massive difficulty spike, at least for melee focuses classes. This much more than just a standard gear check, and seemed to be a pretty big issue for a number of players. It’ll be interesting to see exactly how scaled down these later acts become, and I’m personally anxious to see this change implemented later today.

Besides these two significant changes, there’s a number of expected fixes, nerfs and buffs, and other changes in store. To read all about it, check out the full patch notes listed below, taken directly from Blizzard themselves:

Diablo III Patch 1.0.3 – v.1.0.3.10057
General

To prevent monsters from being unintentionally kited into town from other areas of the game, portals have been placed at both ends of the bridge from New Tristram to The Weeping Willow. Towns have always been intended to be a safe haven from combat, and this change will help keep the denizens of New Tristram safe from the dangers that lurk beyond its walls.

The real-money auction house is now available for Chilean, Argentinian, and Brazilian currencies

Battle.net

General

Friends will now sort alphabetically by name within the Friends List, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag

The Quick Join menu will now also sort alphabetically by name, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag

Chat settings and preferences will now be saved whenever you log out

Reporting another player using the Report > Spam option will now mute that player for the duration of your gaming session

Bug Fixes

Using the /who command in a heavily populated chat channel should no longer cause the client to crash

The “Invite to Party” button should no longer become grayed-out if a player:

Declines a party invite

Requests a party invite and then declines it

Accepts a party invite, but immediately then leaves the party

The character screen should now always display the display the correct act and quest information

If Real ID has been disabled for a Battle.net account, attempting to add a Real ID friend in Diablo III will now prompt the player with the following error message: “Battle.net is unable to add friends because you have Real ID disabled.”

Classes

Barbarian

Active Skills

Ignore Pain

Skill Rune ? Contempt for Weakness

The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player’s maximum Life

Overpower

Skill Rune ? Crushing Advance

The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player’s maximum Life

The tooltip has been updated to represent that both melee and ranged damage are reflected

Weapon Throw

Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be slowed: “Hurl a throwing weapon at any enemy for 100% weapon damage and Slow the movement of the enemy by 60% for 1.5 seconds.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Passive Skills

Relentless

Now reduces the Fury cost of all skill by 75%, down from 100% (the 50% damage reduction remains unchanged)

Demon Hunter

Active Skills

Cluster Arrow

Skill Rune – Dazzling Arrow

Tooltip now displays the correct type of weapon damage dealt by Dazzling Arrow: “Enemies hit by grenades have a 55% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds and changes the damage to Physical.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Grenades

Skill Rune – Stun Grenades

Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: “Hurl grenades that have a 25% chance to Stun enemies for 1.5 seconds.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Bug Fixes

Caltrops

Skill Rune ? Jagged Spikes

Effect will now only stack up to 10 times on a single target

Elemental Arrow

Skill Rune ? Nether Tentacles

Tentacles will now only hit each target once

Monk

General

Monks can now use spears, two-handed weapons, and two-handed swords

Active Skills

Serenity

Skill Rune ? Instant Karma

The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player’s maximum Life

Seven-Sided Strike

Skill Rune – Sustained Attack

Tooltip has been updated for clarity: “Reduces the cooldown of Seven-Sided Strike to 23 seconds.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Mantra of Retribution

Damage will now cap based on the maximum Life of the target

Bug Fixes

Near Death Experience

Fatal damage absorbed by Serenity will no longer trigger Near Death Experience

Witch Doctor

Active Skills

Summon Zombie Dogs

Skill Rune ? Leeching Beasts

Tooltip has been updated for clarity: “Your Zombie Dogs heal 50% of the damage they deal as Life divided evenly between themselves and you.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Wizard

Active Skills

Diamond Skill

Skill Rune ? Mirror Skin

The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the amount of damage absorbed by Diamond Skin

Magic Weapon

When activated, a buff icon will now appear that displays the amount of time remaining

Meteor

Skill Rune – Star Pact

Now deals damage as Arcane instead of Fire

Passive Skills

Paralysis

Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: “Lightning damage dealt to enemies has up to a 8% chance to Stun the target for 1.5 seconds.” (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Items

General

+ Attack Speed bonus values on weapons and armor have been reduced by 50%

This change does not apply to quivers

High-end items (items level 61-63) will now drop in all Acts of Inferno and Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty

The new approximate drop rates are as follows:

Hell – Act III and Act IV

iLvl 61: 9%

iLvl 62: 1.9%

iLvl 63: 0%

Inferno – Act I

iLvl 61: 17.7%

iLvl 62: 7.9%

iLvl 63: 2.0%

Inferno – Act II

iLvl 61: 18.6%

iLvl 62: 12.4%

iLvl 63: 4.1%

Inferno – Act III and Act IV

iLvl 61: 24.1%

iLvl 62: 16.1%

iLvl 63: 8.0%

Please see the Patch 1.0.3 Design Preview for more information and specific details

Repair costs have been increased for item levels between 53 and 63

Magic Find will no longer be considered when looting objects in the environment such as chests, barrels, vases, pots, and corpses

The item quality of all components needed to craft the Staff of Herding, as well as the Staff of Herding itself, have been changed from Common to Legendary (i.e. their item names will appear orange in color)

The Staff of Herding can no longer be salvaged or dropped

Crafted items that are dropped on the ground due to a player?s inventory being full can no longer be seen or picked up by other players

Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain

Weapon racks will no longer drop weapons 100% of the time

Destructible objects no longer have a chance to drop items, and will only have a small chance to drop gold when destroyed

Weapons and Armor

“Balanced” superior items (i.e. Balanced Short Sword) will now grant a percent attack speed increase that only affects the weapon itself, rather than a flat increase to attacks per second that affected both equipped weapons when dual-wielding

Crowd Control Reduction from items and skills will now reduce the percentage value of Slow, Chill, and Attack Speed debuffs rather than reducing how long the debuff lasts

For example: previously, if you were debuffed by a 60% slow that lasted for 2 seconds while wearing gear that provides 20% Crowd Control Reduction, your movement speed would be reduced by 60%, but only for 1.6 seconds. Now, the same amount of Crowd Control Reduction will reduce the Slow effect to 48%, but the effect will remain for the full 2 second duration.

Manticore now has one additional bonus affix

User Interface

Minimum damage and Maximum damage values will now display separately in an item’s tooltip (i.e. “+2-4 Damage” will now display as “+2 Minimum Damage? and ?+2 Maximum Damage”)

Tooltips for items on the ground will now show comparison stats

Resist values will now be taken into effect when calculating the Protection comparison stat (the Protection value is an average protection estimate of all your resists)

When comparing a two-handed weapon against two currently-equipped one-handed weapons, the game will now simulate the removal of both one-handed weapons (instead of simply removing the main-hand weapon, which resulted in an inaccurate comparison)

When selling items to a vendor, the most recently sold items will now always display at the bottom of the Buyback tab

Bug Fixes

Items level 50 and above will now display their item level in the tooltip

Damage Over Time (DoT) skills will now properly benefit from items with the +Critical Chance affix

Legendary items with the +Attack Speed bonus will now correctly provide a bonus to attack speed

Please note that this fix will only affect new Legendary drops. Existing Legendary items will be addressed in future patch.

Players wearing +Life on Kill items should no longer receive a benefit from this affix when “killing” friendly monsters (e.g. when a witch doctor re-summons a Spider Queen while another Spider Queen is still active)

Fixed a bug with linking items with socketed gems in chat

Fixed a bug where vendors would occasionally not have any items for sale

Fixed a bug where selling more than 12 items to a vendor and then buying back 1 of those items could cause multiple items to disappear from the Buyback tab

Fixed a bug where swapping a 1-slot item (i.e. a ring) with 2-slot item (i.e. a weapon) in the second or third tab of a player?s stash would sometimes cause the 2-slot item to be filtered incorrectly to the first tab

Fixed a bug that was causing Collector’s Edition dyes to sell for the same price regardless of stack size…

Crafting

General

The gold and material crafting costs for all items level 1-59 have been reduced by 50% to 75%

Blacksmith

The gold cost to level the Blacksmith has been reduced by 50%

The number of Pages of Blacksmithing, Tomes of Blacksmithing, or Tomes of Secrets required to level the Blacksmith has been reduced

Base levels now require 1 page/tome, down from 5

Milestone levels now require 2 pages/tomes, down from 5

The number of Pages of Blacksmithing and Tomes of Blacksmithing required to craft items level 1-59 has been reduced

Items with 3 affixes no longer require Pages of Blacksmithing or Tomes of Blacksmithing to craft

The gold cost of crafting items with 4 affixes and 5 affixes (including items in Inferno difficulty) has been reduced

Weapon crafting costs have been reduced

The chance for level 60 items to produce Legendary crafting materials when salvaged has been reduced

Jeweler

The gold and material cost to combine gems ranks 2-8 has been reduced

Combinations for these ranks now only require 2 gems, down from 3

The gold cost to combine each rank of gems is now as follows:

Rank 2: Flawed: 10 gold (down from 500 gold)

Rank 3: Regular: 25 gold (down from 750 gold)

Rank 4: Flawless: 40 gold (down from 1250 gold)

Rank 5: Perfect: 55 gold (down from 2000 gold)

Rank 6: Radiant: 70 gold (down from 3500 gold)

Rank 7: Square: 85 gold (down from 7500 gold)

Rank 8: Flawless Square: 100 gold (down from 20,000 gold)

Followers

General

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where the maximum Life of your followers was being displayed as different values in different parts of the game UI

Enchantress

Skills

Mass Control

Radius reduced from 15 yards to 8 yards

If Enchantress also has Reflect Missiles trained, Mass Control will no longer accidentally hex the player when both skills are activated

Skill will now correctly target enemies in all circumstances

Bosses

General

Bosses have had their pathing improved

The quality of the item for the fourth stack of Nephalem Valor from bosses has been slightly reduced

Skeleton King

Abilities

Will now summon Skeletal Archers in Hell and Inferno difficulties

The Warden (mini-boss)

General

Now has Fast and Molten affixes, in addition to Jailer

In Inferno difficulty, the Warden will also gain the Desecrator affix

Butcher

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where the corner panel fires in the Chamber of Suffering were doing twice as much damage as intended

Ghom

Abilities

Gas Cloud

Radius of Gas Cloud has been slightly reduced

Slowing effect has been removed

The amount of damage dealt by Gas Cloud when first entering the cloud has been reduced, but the amount of damage incurred for remaining in the cloud has been increased

In Inferno difficulty, Gas Clouds will last longer, spawn 2 at a time, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more quickly

Maghda

Bug Fixes

Punish Dust projectiles can no longer be reflected

Zoltun Kulle

General

Zoltun Kulle will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes, using his Ceiling Collapse ability more often and for much higher damage

Abilities

Ceiling Collapse

Can now be cast at a player from any range

Fireball

Fireball attack now moves slower

Can now be cast at a player from any range

Teleport

Will now Teleport and run away from the player less often

Will now occasionally Teleport to the player

Belial

General

Belial will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes in his final phase, increasing the number of green pools dropped across the entire encounter platform

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that was causing Belial to use his breath attack away from the player rather than towards the player under certain circumstances

Siegebreaker

General

Overall damage has been reduced

No longer vulnerable to Confuse and Charm effects

Will now drop a health globe every 25% health mark (i.e. at 75%, 50%, and 25% health)

Now enrages after 4 minutes

In Inferno difficulty, Siegebreaker will now gain the Reflects Damage affix

Cydaea

Abilities

Spiderlings

Spiderlings will now have an easier time hitting players, but their damage has been reduced by 20% to compensate

In Inferno difficulty, Spiderlings will now live longer, be more spread out, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more often

Rakanoth

General

In Inferno difficulty, Rakanoth will now become much more aggressive after 3 minutes

Izual

General

Health pool has been increased

The number of Oppressors that join the fight has been reduced from 4 to 2

Will no longer target Followers or Tyrael as frequently

Abilities

Base Attacks

Base attack damage has been lowered

No longer does Cold damage on top of base attacks

Charge

Charge damage has been reduced

Knockback has been removed

Will Charge slightly more often, but will only target players

Frozen Bombs

Frozen Bomb damage has been reduced

Bombs will now explode faster

Only 8 Bombs will now spawn around the player rather than 12

Bombs will spawn at Izual’s feet less often

Frost Explosion

Frost Explosion damage has been reduced by 70%

Duration of freeze has been increased

Damage dealt to players while frozen will now break the effect

Players can now use defensive cooldown while frozen

Players can no longer avoid being frozen by doing high amounts of amount to Izual

Bug Fixes

Izual will no longer spawn twice if a player skips his introductory cut-scene

Diablo

Bug Fixes

Damage Over Time (DoT) effects will now be properly cancelled when Diablo becomes invisible and casts Shadow Clones in Phase Two

Diablo “Stomp” ability is now correctly classified as a debuff instead of a buff

Fixed a bug that was causing pets to not attack Shadow Clones

Monsters

General

Champions, Rares, and Uniques have had their pathing improved

Elite packs (Champion/Rare) now drop an additional item for players with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, which is guaranteed to be of Rare quality

Damage from monsters in Acts II, III, and IV in Inferno difficulty has been reduced

Colossal Golgor base damage has been reduced

Herald of Pestilence tentacle attack damage has been reduced

Soul Ripper and Soul Lasher damage has been reduced and both monsters will now run away less often

Wasps in Act II, Mage Constructs in Act II, and Winged Mollocks in Acts III and IV will now run away less

Succubus monsters will now run away less and for a shorter distance

The health pools of Woodwraiths in the Highlands now match the health pools of Woodwraiths in the Fields of Misery

Lacuni and Scavenger Rares and and Champions will now un-burrow when called by their allies

Bloodclan Warriors no longer knockback when buffed and attack slightly slower

Morlu no longer have the Invulnerable Minions, Health Link, or Fire Chains affixes

Plagued, Arcane Enchanted, and Electrified monsters no longer have resistance to Poison, Arcane, and Lightning damage (respectively)

Leaders of Invulnerable Minions packs have had their health pools reduced

Mortar monsters can now hurl projectiles farther, but their minimum range has also been increased by 100%

Bug Fixes

Interrupting a monster attack before it lands will now properly trigger its cooldown

Treasure Goblins will now drop gold piles for all nearby players

Lacuni Warrior Rares and Champions will now reset their enrage timer correctly in Inferno difficulty

The Succubus “Blood Star” debuff will no longer affect the player if the damage from the projectile is dodged/blocked/etc

The damage from the Succubus ?Blood Star? debuff will now scale based on the current cost of a player’s skill, even if the cost is reduced by items or skill runes

Monsters with the Extra Health affix should no longer gain more health every time players leave and join the game

Monsters with the Reflects Damage affix will no longer reflect Follower damage back to the player

Monsters with the Health Link and Knockback affixes will no longer knockback friendly monsters

Fixed a bug that was causing Champion Wallers to occasionally create walls at their location rather than the player’s location

Fixed a bug where Sandwasp projectiles could sometimes become invisible

Bug Fixes

General

The experience bar for characters at level cap on a Guest Pass account will now display 0-0 experience. If the account holder upgrades to the full game, their characters will be at 0/41000 experience towards the next level.

The speed of the animation that plays when resurrecting another players should no longer scale with your attack speed

Attempting to cast a skill while spamming the Town Portal hot key will now correctly interrupt the Town Portal cast and animation

Players who use Town Portal while in a tar pit will no longer keep the tar pit debuff after being teleported

It is no longer possible for players in Hell difficulty to skip to Inferno difficulty by creating and leaving Public Games

It is no longer possible to prevent character death in a single-player game by pausing the game in one game client and then logging into the same account from a different game client

Fixed a bug where The Lyceum in the Southern Highlands was not appearing

Fixed a bug where players could switch their offerings in the Trade window right before clicking “Accept” and, due to high latency, the game would not always be able to verify that both players were accepting the same offerings

Fixed a bug that was allowing players to temporarily pick up items that belonged to another account

Fixed a bug that was causing players to become stuck when using a banner to port to another player that was in an “un-walkable” location (i.e. to a barbarian in the middle of performing Leap)

Fixed a position desync bug ,aka “rubberbanding”, that could happen when some movement skills (Strafe, Whirlwind, Tempest Rush) ended because the player ran out of the appropriate resource

Fixed several issues where a player’s character would get stuck or “rubberband” while moving if their movement speed was slowed in any way

Several performance improvements have been made to both the PC and Mac client

Auction House

Item tooltips in the auction house will now correctly reflect stat bonuses provided by socketed gems

Items with class-specific affixes should now display the class restriction properly

It should no longer be possible for players to purchase a stack of items so large that it cannot be sent to their stash

The data displayed in each auction house tab should now properly reset when logging out

Related