Coming to you from somewhere in sanctuary. This is episode 461 of Shattered Soulstone, your Diablo community podcast. This episode is called even more hatred. It is October 5th 2024, and this is Jen. I got a whole bunch of stuff in here. Most of it is coming from Wowhead because they do really good things, and I'm just gonna start us off with that. There was, patch notes, Diablo 4 patch notes a while ago, not that long ago, October 2nd. So I I put it in for the front because it's like, you know, the first thing, October 2nd. I mean, you know, whatever. So this is what was listed here on the Blizzard, all dues thing. Okay. It says the Diablo 4 team has been monitoring your feedback as as we introduce patches to keep your experience in sanctuary smooth. We will update the below list and denote whether the fixes are intended for PC, Xbox, PlayStation, or all platforms. So the next thing along it is a lot of detail on stuff. I'm not gonna read you every word because there's a whole lot of it. And it says that the 2.0.2 build will be, available on October 7th. If you're using NVIDIA, DLSS frame generation and ray traced foliage will be disabled while the team works on addressing an issue in an upcoming patch. So here's some stuff. This is starting with classes. All classes, legendary aspect affix values now have a separate cap between ancestral and non ancestral items. Now the maximum values for aspects can only be found on ancestral items. And here is a developer's note. Previously, max roles of aspects could be found much earlier on. This made the transition into ancestral ancestral items less exciting as your aspects could already be maxed out before you entered torment difficulty. Now there is more noticeable item progression as you move through torment difficulties. Then there's a thing about runewords. It's a little strange though. So alright. Magic ruins of ritual. The first one is cir, c I r, casts same non channeled skill 3 times. Offering gained increased from 25 to 50. Sem, c e m, evade, offering gained increased from 50 to 75. Mani or moni, m o n I, cast after moving offering gained increased from 10 to 25. Interval increased from 0.2 seconds to 0.25 seconds. Yaks, just like the animal, use healing potion from 100 to 200. There's a little bit more in here, that are rare runes of ritual, and I'll leave you to find those when you buy the expansion, which I have yet to do, but I'll get there. There's also ruins of invocation. I'm going to just tell you the names of them and a little tiny bit about them. So the first one is Vex plus 3 doll skills. Zan, x a n, critical overpower. Gar, gain critical strike chance up to 10 stacks. Zao, x a l, max HP, QA, movement speed up to 5 stacks, tech, TEC, earthquake, ton stun grenades, ton, t0n meteorites, tal, pestil, and swarm. Now we're going into classes a little bit. The sorcerer unstable currents, the tool tip for unstable currents has been updated to state unleashed instead of is also cast. Developers note the effects of unstable currents are not treated as casts, which only occur once when you press the skill button. And then lightning spear, only 12 lightning spears can exist at one time. Any new ones created will destroy the oldest one. Passives, enlightenment no longer gain stacks from automatic casts that can only occur every 0.2 seconds. And it goes on from there. There's some unique items in here as well. There's tempering. If you've done if you've been playing, Diablo 4, I'm gonna say the original, then you've probably, you know, heard about a lot of these other things, in here. There's the infernal hordes. The developer's note says we've made several changes to ensure infernal hordes remain a fun and rewarding activity. Our changes address not being able to target farm specific unique items on a consistent basis, loot rewards feeling lackluster, and the process of people of opening chest feeling tedious. There's a whole bunch of information about all those chests. There's a miscellaneous in here. I'll just give you the developer's notes on these. When trying to socket a gem into a 2 socket item that is already full, the bottom gem will be removed, and the new gem will become the top gem. Think in think first in, first out. If you try to socket a gem into an item that has 1 or more runes in it, all runes are automatically runes onto into an item that contains gems. Additionally, unsocketing no longer costs gold to perform. I'll just go through the developer's notes. We've received requests for a reliable way to obtain a mythic unique during a season. This change fills that need. We've also created an avenue that allows you to target a specific mythic unique using runes, giving more flexibility and progressive chase in your pursuit of mythic unique items. Another developer's note, and then I'll stop there with it. With the substantial increase to impairment reduction sources through Paragon, we found this was a good opportunity to improve the overall pool of affixes on gear by removing impairment reduction as a gear affix. And there's there's a few more things in here, but I thought they were kind of interesting. I've got another one. It's from September 30, and I may have said it on a show before the big gap where I couldn't do anything because I got really sick for a while. So I'm just catching up a little bit and you guys can catch up with me. So this one was actually posted by Blizzard Entertainment on September 30, 2024. It says, Erd Vessel of Hatred launch Twitch Drops. Okay? If you don't know what a Twitch drop is, you go to Twitch. You look for somebody playing the expansion, and, you'll you'll get, like, drops of stuff you can use in in the game when you start playing it. So, here's a little description. Vessel of hatred arrives on October 7 at 4 PM PDT, bringing wanderers back into the hatred filled canopies of non hautu, if I'm saying that right. I think it's non hautu. Following launch, celebrate with 4 weeks of Twitch drops to earn starting on October 8, 10 at 10 AM PDT. So that's, a few days from now. Prepare your vessel of hatred's imminent arrival. Connect your battle dot net account with your Twitch account, and then watch dedicated streamers in the Diablo 4 category to earn coveted drops. Gifting 2 Twitch subscriptions earned you the ghost of the conquered mount, and gifting 4 Twitch subscriptions earned you the glory of the Victor mount armor. Read below for more details. So if you don't know what Twitch drops are, it's in this article. Everything I talk about in the show is gonna be in the show notes when I get this all, you know, put together. So here's what it is. The below list of Twitch drops could be earned by watching any channel in the Diablo 4 category with drops enabled each week. Please note that after watching any eligible streamer for 3 hours, you must claim the corresponding reward prior to gaining progress towards the second, the next reward. So there's some for the sorcerer and necromancer. The start time is October 8, 10 AM PDT. The end time is October 15 at 9 59 AM PDT. Watch at least 3 hours of eligible diablo 4 content while this Twitch drop is active to earn the ringmaster's word 2 handed staff item cosmetic for the sorcerer and the wranglers hook scythe item cosmetic for the necromancer in jungle moss and twitch purple weapon recolors, all for your demon slaying needs. Keep the momentum and a total of 6 hours to earn the guise of the grand vizier for sorcerer and guise of the tombkeeper for necromancer back trophy. The next one is the barbarian. It's got a really cool dragon head looking thing on it and and a fancy ax. So that's gonna pop up October 15 at 10 AM PDT, and it will end on October 22, 9:59 AM PDT. Again, you have to watch, you know, like 6 hours or something like that. For the rogue, it's October 22 at 10 AM and October 29, 9:59 AM to get, what looks like a fancy bird and a really neat looking bow. And then for the druid, it's October 29, 10 AM PDT, and it ends on November 5, 9:59 AM PST. You can also support a streamer if you want to do that. As mentioned earlier, from October 8, 10 AM PDT to November 5, 9:59 PST, you can also show your support for streamers within the Diablo 4 category by purchasing or gifting their channel Twitch subscriptions of any tier. Purchasing or gifting 2 Twitch subscriptions will earn you the hauntingly brilliant ghost of the conquered mount. Purchasing or gifting 4 Twitch subscriptions will grant you the formidable glory of the Victor bound armor, which is super fancy, And that's kind of how it goes. So, well, you know, if you're interested in doing that, you can. Just keep it in mind that you might miss stuff if you don't check it out. Or if you have a particular class that you really enjoy playing and you don't care much about the other ones, then, you know, check it out again, see when that's gonna pop up for you, and it'll be fine. Over on Wowhead, we have an article titled Diablo 4, the story so far. There is a spoiler warning when in brackets, and it looks like it's a video. So I'm just going to read you a tiny little bit of this. It's a pretty short video. The release of Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred is less than a month away. To refresh our memories of the events that have taken place so far in Diablo 4, Blizzard has released a story recap on YouTube. Now I'm not gonna play that right now because I don't know if that's I'm not sure exactly how that's gonna go if I put this up and, you know, or put the video of it up and have things go wrong or something like that. So here's what Blizzard wrote. Your battle with hell has only just begun. Witness the epic struggle that almost brought sanctuary to its knees in Diablo 4. The next chapter of the dark tale continues with the vessel of hatred on October 8. Pre purchase the ultimate edition and instantly unlock Diablo 4 in game items, diablo.com/expansion. So there's those. Have I bought this yet? Not yet, but I will. Okay. Another one from 13 days ago. Nope. 13 hours ago. Excuse me. New Legion event in non Hantu for Diablo 4 vessel of hatred. And this one is posted by Jez Artross. So here we are. Wow head was recently invited to a playtest of Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred. And during our explorations in Nanhontu, we found fun new content, namely a brand new Legion event. Players diving into the jungles of Nanhontu Hauntu in search of Narel can make a pit stop at the newest Legion event of souls and spirits. Players must escort several basins of souls around the area, allowing them to collect souls as you move. Be warned, though, the forces of hell don't want you to succeed. Players will battle their way through waves of demons as the basins travel through the arena, and you will need to protect them as well. The demons can destroy a basin if if you're overwhelmed. Once all basins have been escorted, the final boss spawns, and then of course, you're loot too. Mob density does not seem to be a problem in this legion event. Scores of demons spawn as you escort the basins of souls with more and more pouring in as the event progresses, players will be able to work together to escort the basins. So it won't be quite as difficult as any as attempting a solo on the playtest realms. That said, expect a fun challenge with this event. And after that, I've got another one also from Wowhead. Diablo 4 vessel of hatred early access q and a with Brent Gibson, Rex Dixon, Colin Feiner, and Kyle Martin. This is from 14 hours ago, and it looks like it's just a question and answer kind of thing going on. Yeah. So this was written by, a Wowhead person named, Jen Artross. And I'll just read you a little bit of this because it's pretty long. But again, everything will be in the show notes. You can, like, look it up right away. Okay. Diablo 4's vessel of hatred launches in only a few short days, and soon players will be deep in the jungles of Nanhontu following in Dorel's footsteps in a race against time to stop the corrupting influence of Mephisto. Wowhead was recently lucky enough to be invited to an early playtest of Vessel of Hatred, and as a result, participated in a q and a session with several Diablo 4 developers. Joined by other playtesters as well as game director Brett Brent Gibson, lead designer Rex Dixon, leave live design live designer Colin Feiner, and producer Kyle Martin. This q and a covered everything from design philosophies, new features, the spirit born, runewords, and more. Dive in with us for some of your most burning questions answered. And, yeah, there are there are spoilers in this. There's a little block here that says stay a while and listen, Wanderer. Story spoilers for Diablo 4 vessel of hatred can be found ahead. Continue at your own risk. So I'm not gonna read you those because some people don't like to be spoiled. So that's what that is, but you'll find it in the show notes when I'm done here. We've got another one from Wowhead, from 14 hours ago. New tormented boss summoning material transmute recipes available with vessel of hatred. And who wrote this one actually? This is Tharid. Okay. Collecting materials to summon tormented bosses is one of the critical gameplay loops in Diablo 4's end game. With the release of vessel of hatred on October 7 and 8, players can transmute summoning materials from lesser tormented bosses into summoning materials needed to summon tormented Uber Duriel and tormented Uber Andariel. Now I fought Andariel. I think I fought Duriel in, not the, you know, new expansion coming up, obviously, but I think it'll be fun to try that again. In addition to lesser summon materials, players will also need kazra horns, which drop from lesser tormented bosses. And in the dark citadel, Vessel of Hatred's new end game raid dungeon. There's a picture here of this Kazra Horn. Below, you can find all the boss summoning material transmute recipes available at the alchemist in the vessel of hatred. And there's a section here on tormented Uber Duriel and tormented Uber and Dariel in here. We have another story. We have new Akarad short story and audiobook unveiled, Diablo IV vessel of hatred. This was posted 13 hours ago by Verid, and it has a really nice picture at the top of this that if you didn't know anything about the Diablo series, you would think this was like, you know, something you'd see in a in a church or something like that. So here's what we've got. There is a whole story about this. I'll just read you a little tiny bit of this. And so here's what was written here by Therad. Want to get into the mood for the release of vessel of hatred? Blizzard has released a compelling short story about Akhirat, also available as a 47 minute audiobook. Looking at the trailers and teasers of the last weeks of the last weeks leading up to vessel of hatred's launch, Akhirat, prophet and leader of the Zakarum faith, will play a crucial play a crucial role in the story of Diablo 4's first expansion. The first the story the shot story written by Matthew j Kirby, author of the book of Lorath and the upcoming book, Book of Prava, I don't have that one yet, tells the tale of Akkharat and his first visit to Nan Hathu. So there's a tiny little bit in here and I'll read you that. So Blizzard wrote this sanctuary is a volatile place. Danger lurks at every turn and the reappearance of Mephisto's hatred has ushered in a new era of hardships for those who call these lands home. While its denizens may have little hope, the rich stories they've passed down through the generations have shined truth on the darkness. So this one is in titled when Akhirat came to Nanhatur is written by, Matthew J Kirby. There's a little tiny picture or not picture. It's a it's a little tiny, like, story starts here kind of thing. And I don't wanna like spoil it for you, but it'll be in the show notes. You can look it up for yourself. So you can read it, or you can listen to the audiobook narrated by Ocarrot voice actor Joshua Chang. So I think that's cool. You get 2 options in there if you'd like to do that. Another one, 15 hours ago, Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred expansion review. So here we go. This is written by also by Tharid. He seems to be doing a lot this time. Hatred Looms Over Sanctuary. On October 8, Vessel of Hatred, Diablo 4's first expansion, will continue to unveil the story of the prime evil Mephisto's return. Thanks to Blizzard, Wowhead was granted access to an exclusive week long vessel of hatred playtest. And for over 300 hours combined across all team members, we were able to dive into the expansions campaign, the new spirit born class, its leveling and end game systems, and much more. So here's a little bit about the campaign. I'd have to say this actually a lot. So there's 4 different categories in here that, you can read through. I'll just talk about the campaign for now and everything else. I'll just give you the titles of what's happening from there. So for the campaign, Diablo 4's first campaign, which launched alongside the main game in June last year, was generally well received by both game journalists and community members. Without spoiling vessel of hatred story, we can safely say that Blizzard has kept up this momentum and crafted a fantastic campaign fit for a first expansion. We can't and won't tell what that campaign is about, of course, but we can tell you how it felt to play vessel of hatred's campaign. 1st, we advise you to play through the campaign on normal difficulty if you decide to experience it with your 1st seasonal character. Campaign quests reward incredible amounts of experience, and we won't defeat millions of monsters along the way. So playing through the campaign on hard difficulty, which grants 75 percent more monster experience, wouldn't be worth it anyway. In the end, most of us hit around level 50 by just playing the campaign on normal. The pacing felt great because it balanced leveling speed well while fully embracing one of the expansion's main features, a new storyline to explore. Now back to the story. Diablo 4's first campaign ended on an unsettling note. Yes. Both Lilith and Denarius were taken care of. But what about Mephisto, the much greater or even primeval? In the end, Narelle took fate in the form of Mephisto's soul stone into her own hands, which started a character arc that up to this day isn't universally loved by the community. With the start of vessel of hatred's campaign, the player decides to follow Narel into nonhontu where she plans to destroy the soul stone with the help of Aqaraq's tomb, a light infused point of interest for every believer of the light. While this does feel a lot like Du Amashina, moment with the sole intention of kicking off a new expansion story, we are glad that for once in Diablo history, the soul stone bearer received some form of human assistance. During our adventure through Nan Han 2 and vessel of hatred's campaign, we began to understand Narelle's role in place in sanctuary. She's a vessel for a prime evil. This epiphany helped us better understand her motives and actions. More than once, Norell reminded us of Diablo 2's Marius, the lonely adventurer who unknowingly assisted the prime evils in their uprise back in the day. While playing through the campaign, fans will notice countless parallels between Vessel of Hatred and Diablo 2. While the spirit born is a new class is a novel choice made by Blizzard, vessel of hatred's campaign returns to the roots of Diablo lore. While the main game campaign showcased the eternal struggle between heaven and hell, vessel of hatred's campaign is all about the conflict between light and darkness, all supported by stellar voice acting, immersive cut scenes, and of course breathtaking cinematics. Now there's other things in here that you can, you know, check out from when I post this. So they're talking about the spirit born class and what that is, leveling in the end game type things. There's a conclusion in here somewhere. And, it's going to vessel of hatred will release worldwide on October 7 8. So you have a little while to get into that if you haven't done it already. Over on, also on Wowhead, Diablo 4 vessel of hatred patch 2.0.2 early download now available on battle.net. This is written by popular popular. Diablo 4 global director of community Adam Fletcher has announced that Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred patch 2.0.2 is now available for early download on all PC Battle dot net users who own the expansion, which means if you're playing on a Mac like I am, that's not going to work. But fortunately, I have an Xbox, so it should be okay. So here's a little screenshot from x.com from Adam Fletcher. It says pcbnet users can now download 2 point 0.2 early before the launch of vessel of hatred. I recommend grabbing this prior to launch on October 8th. And then there's a whole thing here with the rest of this. I'm just gonna take a look at that real quick. He's got this early download for vessel of hatred is live for, this was on September 30. So maybe I don't need that, but Xbox and PS users will just grab 2.0.2 for their download. So that's safe enough, I would think. I'm gonna try to go back in there, but maybe not. Okay. Another one from Jen Artross. Stronghold leveling nerfed in Diablo 4 season 6. In Diablo 4, many players look for the fastest ways to level, whether that be grinding nightmare dungeons, speed running the pit, or more recently running strongholds over and over. However, a new meta will need to be discovered in season 6 because strongholds, formerly one of the best ways to level, have received an nerf to experience to to experience to bring them back in line. Here's a little bit from Blizzard itself. Experience rewards received for completing strongholds have been adjusted. Players will now earn a one time experience reward when killing a stronghold boss, preventing players from infinitely earning large amounts of experience from the same stronghold through partying. Partying meaning you brought 3 other people or 4 other people with you or more than that. Developers note, we're glad the return of quest experience rewards like strongholds in patch 2.0 is being enjoyed. We've adjusted the experience rewards so that strongholds remain a strong early to mid game leveling activity, but not strong enough that it's mandatory to hold them from completion until a later character levels. While strongholds will be lucrative to run, they won't be quite at the top of the pack in terms of experience gain any longer, meaning players will have to use other strategies once again, such as hell tides. So there's that. I got 2 more things for you. Main stat damage bonus reverted in Diablo 4 season 6 back to former baseline, written a day ago by Jen Artras. Blizzard has stated that the damage bonuses granted by main stat newly added in Diablo 4 season 5 will be reverted in season 6 back to former values. In their newly released patch 2.0.1/2.0.2 patch notes, Blizzard included a line mentioning the previously buffed main stat bonuses would be reduced to prior values. This in turn will undo many of the changes that players were just getting used to in season 5. There's a little tiny thing here from Blizzard. The 2 times increase applies to main stat contribution to skill damage and has been reverted to pre patch 2.0 values. Previously in Diablo 4 patch 1.5.0, all classes except barbarian were given a bonus to their main stat increasing the skill damage they would deal. For some classes such as druid and necromancer, this revision will equal up to a 25% nerf in terms of main stat damage values. Then I have one last thing in here. This is another story. It is a story recap specifically on Diablo 4, the story so far. It's on YouTube, and it's a very short little thing. I'll probably watch it later. I don't wanna, like, add the audio from this into a show that I'm just getting done with here. So, it's there. And everything that you'll need to find out about what all of this is, you can find it in the show notes shortly at shattered soulstone.com. You've been listening to episode 461 of the Shattered Soulstone, your Diablo community podcast. Missed an episode? You could find the show blog and listen to the show archives at www.shattersoulstone.com. Come join us in game. Our in game community and clan, both named Shattered Soulstone, are open to anyone who would like to join. You can also join us on Discord for the ultimate team and community based experience. Find the Discord invitation link on our Twitter at shattered stone, as well as the Shattered Soulstone website. Thank you for listening. This episode is called, I forgot the name of it. Hold on. Oh. Okay. Let's try that again.