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Diablo III's Crusader at 70: Post-patch impressions
The Diablo III: Reaper of Souls expansion changed the game from top to bottom. With the extra 10 levels came an almost complete reimagining of how Diablo 3 would play: from the relentlessly on-rails story mode to the free-form adventure mode, from wheeling and dealing on the auction house for the items you wanted to hoping for those items to pop out of a freshly slain enemy. In the wake of the game's sweeping changes, the new Crusader class has been something of an afterthought for many. However, Blizzard hasn't been shy to make adjustments to the newest member of their demon-slaying team. A patch just two weeks after the expansion's launch brought major buffs to the Crusader. This week, another patch featured a long list of changes that revamped the class from top to bottom. If you're wondering whether you should invest the time to level a Crusader, join me past the break for my impressions. The class has come a long way in just seven weeks, and this latest patch has been a gamechanger.
Diablo III - Hardcore Crusaders absolutely should not use Shattering Throw or they will die
This isn't me being all hyperbolic. This is actually what will happen to you if you use the combination Blessed Shield and Shattering Throw. Your character will die, and for hardcore players, that means your character will be dead forever. Grimiku - PSA: Avoid Blessed Shield - Shattering Throw Hello, Crusaders I wanted to help spread the word that there is currently a very ugly bug with Blessed Shield - Shattering Throw that will result in your Crusader instantly dying if you use this skill. Hardcore players should avoid using this skill for now! We're working on a hotfix for this issue and we'll update the Patch 2.0.4 Hotfix thread once that happens. Thank you all for your patience and understanding while we work on fixing this as soon as possible! source As my Crusader has both of these and likely would have blown himself up (a mere annoyance for me, but the end of that character if you play on Hardcore) I thought you all should know.
Watch the fury of Diablo III's Crusader in action
With all of the fun that players seem to be having with the recent Diablo III pre-expansion patch, it might be easy to forget that there's still more to come with Reaper of Souls -- including a new class, the Crusader. Blizzard hasn't forgotten, of course, and the studio posted a new video today to spotlight the class' mechanics, lore, and visual flair. On paper the Crusader sounds like a near-invincible melee class, but how does it look in action? Check out the video after the break and you tell us.
Pantheon's Crusader brings two shields to the fight
Pantheon's latest announced class, the Crusader, might have the trappings of a traditional armored tank, but he's got a few surprises up his sleeves -- such as the ability to dual-wield shields. Crusaders are front-line fighters that use heavy armor, one- and two-handed weapons, and tall shields as well as a dollop of divine power to smite foes and bless allies. Players who go down this virtuous path can specialize either as a melee-focused Cavalier or a magic-using Paladin. It sounds as though Crusaders will be very beneficial to parties with group-wide buffs and the ability to tank effectively. They'll also get a squire to help out, undead-banishing abilities, and the option to pick up two shields for both protection and offense.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls closed beta has begun
The closed beta for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls has officially begun. Players that have opted in to the beta should begin checking their email for beta invites. Reaper of Souls, the first expansion for Diablo III, features all-new content as well as the new Crusader class, enchanting, transmogrification and of course, lots and lots of frantic mouse clicking. Players that have received a beta invite can check their Battle.net accounts to verify that the license has been added -- or if you've received a Closed Beta key, you can add it to your account by logging in to your Battle.net page. For players that have yet to receive an invitation to the closed beta, make sure you've opted in on your Battle.net Beta Profile Settings page -- and while you're at it, make sure the page has the latest system specifications for your computer. Keep in mind that with the closed beta, you must have an active Diablo III license attached to your account -- and that license needs to be in good standing in order to be eligible. No banned or suspended accounts. Also, as with any beta test, the risk of phishing attempts runs a little higher. If you receive an email that states you're in the beta, be sure you don't click any links in the email itself. Instead, log into your Battle.net account to check that the license has been added, or to manually add a game code. For more information on the Diablo III: Reaper of Souls closed beta, take a look at Blizzard's official page -- and good luck to all those that have opted in!
BlizzCon 2013: Reaper of Souls Hands-on gameplay impressions
At BlizzCon 2013, I was lucky enough to sit down at one of Blizzard's demo machines and play through the first part of the new Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls expansion as the new class, the Crusader. This article will have some spoilers for the new content, so if you're trying to avoid that, beware. Crusading The demo character was a male Crusader, set at level 33. He came with a few powers preset, which I used for the demo. For the left mouse button, a single target Slash attack struck the enemy with holy power. For the right button, Fist of the Heavens sent a huge beam of Holy Energy from the heavens around the Crusader, followed up by electric bolts that split off and attacked any enemies still standing. This right click, of course, cost Wrath, which is the Crusader's resource and regenerates like a combination of a rogue's energy and a death knight's runic power from WoW.
Blizzcon 2013: Diablo III Reaper of Souls class and systems panel
On the second day of BlizzCon 2013, the Diablo 3 team hosted a gameplay systems panel in which they covered some of the new systems coming to the Reaper of Souls expansion, including not only the Crusader class, but information on changes for the existing classes and some of the new itemization tweaks we can expect to see in Loot 2.0. Crusading for a new class The first section of the panel introduced the new class, the Crusader. Designing a new class is one of the most complex tasks in an RPG, but it starts with a simple concept. In this case, the team wanted a righteous paladin type, which would work as a good answer to Malthael, the angel of death and main villain of Reaper of Souls. The idea came together of having a dark paladin, full of righteous wrath, a "knight in battle-scarred armor" to stand for humanity in its darkest hour. This lead to concept art. They knew they wanted the Crusader to be bulky and blocky, but it took many weeks of reiterations before they settled on the look of today, with the shield, the flail, and the tabard.
The Queue: Of murlocs and crusaders
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I hope that minion card coming with the virtual ticket doesn't have as much disaster potential as Gelbin Mekkatorque. Thanks for turning my Lord of the Arena into a chicken, bro. Now get out of my deck. globalsmitty asked: So, the 'Crusader Murloc' reward for purchasing a virtual ticket to Blizzcon, a clue to the next expansion maybe? The much suspected return of the Burning Legion?
Gold Capped: The market for enchanting mats for BoA gear
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make money on the auction house. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! A long-running, profitable business is selling enchanting scrolls that can be put on BoA gear. These all have no minimum level, since BoA gear is considered level 1, which means they typically take lower-level enchanting mats. Some good examples of these mats are Large Brilliant Shards and Greater Eternal Essences, which are used for a bunch of enchants like Crusader and Spellpower. The price for these mats have gone up quite a bit on most realms since Cataclysm, and the reason is clear: The ilevels of the drops in Stratholme were reduced in patch 4.0.1, and the drops in there no longer disenchant into the same mats.
The Game Archaeologist and the Ultima Prize: Richard Garriott
Before he was Tabula Rasa's General British, Richard Garriott was simply -- and most famously -- known as Lord British, the absolute ruler and creator of the Ultima franchise. From 1980's Ultima I through 1999's Ultima IX, Lord British guided the development of one of the most popular RPG series of all time, including 1997's Ultima Online. Through it, Garriott and his Lord British persona became the de facto face of the series, a video game celebrity before such a thing really existed. After the floundering of Tabula Rasa and his subsequent falling-out with NCSoft, Garriot took a little R&R time to blast into outer space, returning to Earth to get involved with a social media games company called Portalarium. Because of his stature as one of the founding giants of not only MMORPGs, but video game RPGs as well, the Game Archaeologist stopped at nothing to procure his wise words for an interview. This quest took us to far-off, dangeous places -- including the world's most famous haunted house, Britannia Manor -- at which point we promptly purchased a return ticket and pleaded with our editor to do our dirty work for us. So bow, mere mortal! For you are now in the presence of LORD BRITISH! (cue wild applause)
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Loot Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.New instances and raids are fun and all, but let's not forget what we're all here for: the loot. With the new patch out on servers, there's a whole slew of new items and gear to win and collect. Here's a quick roundup of everything we know about the new loot coming in patch 3.2, from the badges you pull from dead bosses' bodies, to the sweet epics you can turn them in to get.
Breakfast Topic: Does the Background Downloader get you fired up?
So as you may have seen if you follow WRUP, I've been trying on and off for months to summon up the energy to get through the tournament on my Death Knight. It's not that I don't want it, but the Argent Tournament dailies just aren't my favorite. The quests are lacking life and excitement, and the lore is sort of tepid. When it comes time to solo, I find myself retreating to a leveling alt rather than doing the same old boring dailies over and over again. I'm pretty sure it's not even the repetition of dailies that's doing it either. I used to do the Shattered Sun dailies over and over all the time without a care, just because they were so much fun.But with the announcement of new dailies to be opened to people with enough faction in Patch 3.2, I've felt like I need to make that final push. However, it wasn't until a few days ago that I finally kicked myself into gear, and I'm now at a week and counting of doing my tournament dailies every day without fail. The reason? The background downloader went up.
Changes coming to the Crusader title
We were just talking about this on the podcast last night -- Turpster's tip a week or so ago was that going for the Crusader title in the Argent Tournament actually puts you at a disadvantage, because if you keep from turning in the last Valiant quest for the achievement, you don't lock off having the ability to do both Valiant and Champion quests together, thus, as you can see in the thread, earning an extra 36 gold a day, which adds up to 1000g a month. After you earn the ability to represent every city, you can't do the Valiant quests any more (instead, you have to earn city reputation through the Champion's Writ, which costs you 10g from the opposite reward). In short, right now, if you're leveling through the AT quests, stay away from the Crusader achievement until you have all of the city reputations covered, and all the gold you want.Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), Bornakk says that Blizzard probably will make a change here soon to smooth everything out. But how they'll do that isn't quite clear -- they could leave the dailies (or some form of them) open even after you get the achievement, or they could beef up the achievement reward to make up for it. Not a hard fix either way. But yes, until then, you might want to rethink racing to the Crusader achievement, as there's more reward to be had by waiting.
Insider Trader: Popular enchants and where to get them
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.If you've ever spent any time sitting in trade chat, you could probably make a list of some of the most popular enchants. Requested frequently, any enchanter possessing the the knowledge to imbue a weapon or piece of armor with the proper stats stands to make a fair amount of gold. For example, a healer seeking Major Healing, or a meleer seeking Mongoose, will know the materials, and gather them. Each time they replace their respective weapons, back into trade they will go to request the enchant. Today, Insider Trader presents a list of some of the most requested enchants with information about how to obtain them so that you can offer them to friends, guildmates, and your server. It is by no means a complete list, but it will get you off to a shining start and provide you with quite a to-do list. Check out the comments section for helpful details as well. Drop rate data was gathered from the Armory, and Blizzard uses ranges such as Very Low (1-2%). This is narrowed down with data from Wowhead where appropriate, but keep in mind that some bind on pick-up recipes can only be seen by enchanters, and Wowhead cannot filter out that data, making their estimate much lower than the actual drop rate. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be working on the faction recipes series, focusing on enchanting, so stay tuned.
Breakfast Topic: Titles! Titles! Titles!
The latest Beta build had a slew of new titles for players to drool over. Of course, most of them were exactly that... titles to drool over but not obtain since most of them were rewards for being the first to Level 80 or first to skill up to 450. Technically, there can actually be more than one person who is 'first' as there's a one minute window when the Feat of Strength is accomplished. Still not very forgiving, and not exactly very casual and quite contrary to the "we want players to enjoy Northrend and not skip content" mantra Blizzard has been repeating as a justification for not having flying mounts for the first seven levels in the expansion.What do you guys think of the new titles? Frankly, I think a lot of them are pretty darn cool. But seriously, in all likelihood, these first-to-Level-80 characters will have little to no experience of Northrend. Your realm's first Archmage is likely to have no standing with the Kirin-Tor, for example. The first Paladin to Level 80, your realm's so-called Crusader, will most probably have grinded and not actually done any quests for the Argent Crusade. Perhaps Blizzard will have some retroactive titles, such as Conqueror / Justicar or even Scarab Lord, which wasn't implemented until after most AQ gates had been opened. What're your thoughts on the new titles?
Death Knight News: Rune swapping gone, Runeforging to be powerful
The introduction of runeforging to the Wrath Beta was a bit of surprise and slightly unexpected. Instead of rune swapping -- the idea of being able to change the nature and configuration of the runes on your runeblade -- Death Knights got a solid 2 Unholy, 2 Blood, and 2 Frost runes. Runeforging itself became a weapon enchantment system whereby Death Knights could enchant their weapon with various special procs and buffs for various situations. There has as of yet been no sign of an ability to swap runes, and Jayde, aka Jadefury, recently asked if there were still plans for one. The short answer, according to blue poster Ghostcrawler, is no. The long answer is perhaps a bit more complicated, and reinforces Blizzard's stated goals with the Death Knight class role and the new runeforging ability.
Riding Crop stacking and the mount speed limit
Leatherworkers who've hit 350 have been doing some brisk business making and selling the Riding Crop, a new trinket that increases mount speed by a whopping 10%. The previous +mount speed items combined (Mithril Spurs, made by Blacksmiths and attached to boots, the Carrot trinket from a ZF quest, and a glove enchant), added up to only 9%, and some players were excited that with the crop included, they'd see a full 19% speed bonus.Not so, says Drysc. By decree of the devs, the biggest mount speed bonus items can grant will be 10%, which means the Riding Crop does not stack with any other items (keep that in mind before you spend a ton of gold on it). It's meant, says Drysc, as a space and time saver more than anything else-- don't carry around three items when you can carry around one.Of course, as alert players point out, there are class speed buffs that will stack with Riding Crop-- Crusader Aura is one for Pallies, and I'm sure commenters to this post could come up with more (I thought that Aspect of the Pack would, except that AotP doesn't stack with mounts at all, so of course it doesn't stack with the Riding Crop). There are probably even those among you who wonder why any more than a 10% buff even matters for getting from place to place, but for some players (especially those in battlegrounds), every second spent on a mount counts.
