New patch brings PVP, new crafting recipes, updates to Monster Power, and improvements to Monk and Wizard Classes.
When Diablo III was released back in May 2012 it was criticized for not including any form of Player-Verses-Player. With the release of today’s patch players can at long last give a right stomping to one another. PVP takes place in a separate area called “The Scotched Chapel” which can only be entered by talking with a new NPC Nek the Brawler in Act I. Unfortunately PVP in Diablo III is lackluster at best. From my experience there is no balance, no reward scheme, or any real reason to play PVP -it feels tacked on. Luckily Diablo III is always being updated with new and improved patches and I suspect PVP in its current state is just the beginning of something great.
Crafting has also been a huge point of contention in Diablo III because pre-1.07 it felt impossible to craft anything worth having. What’s more, the Auction House had many players feeling that Diablo III was becoming a pay-to-win type game. Patch 1.07 tries to remedy this by introducing several new crafting recipes which can be found throughout Sanctuary and increasing their drop rate by 400%. These new recipes also require a new crafting material called “Demonic Essence” which is dropped at random. In addition the new recipes will allow players to choose a core stat (Intelligence, Dexterity, Vitality, or Strength) to allow players narrow down the variability a bit.
According to Blizzard, these new recipes are designed for high-end players who are looking for significant improvements to their current gear. As such, these created items will be bound-on-account –meaning you cannot sell them on the Auction House.
Well well…what have we here?
Also added are new, account-bound, Marquise gems. These gems are one step above the pre-1.07 maximum tier gems and require a jeweler design and 20 million gold to craft (ouch). In addition, the ruby has seen some dramatic improvements to its damage output when placed inside a weapon.
In patch 1.05 Blizzard added Monster Power as an end game for us Diablo III die-hards. In general Monster Power gives players increasing rewards based on the difficulty setting they choose (0-10). The only problem with Monster Power was you could only play it in Private matches, which meant most of us played alone. Well that all changes today. Players are now able to join Public games and select a Monster Power difficulty, thus bringing back the multiplayer most of us have missed. In addition, all experience bonuses have been increased dramatically.
An update to “My Epic Loot”…now available with even more Epicness!
The bread and butter of Patch 1.07 are the buffs to both the Wizard and Monk Classes, but rather than list all the great improvements here I will refer you to the 1.07 patch notes on the Blizzard website. Overall patch 1.07 adds a great deal to Diablo III and remedies many of the complaints since launch. It falls flat with the PVP, but I suspect we will see great improvements to it in the patches to come.
[box type=”info” font=”helvetica”]If you haven’t gotten around to playing Diablo III you can download a Starter Edition for free from the Blizzard website.[/box]