Diablo II v1.13b Patch Hits the PTR

Testing of the original Diablo II v1.13 patch on the public test realm has come to a close, though Blizzard has now released a v1.13b patch that addresses some last-minute bugs and balancing issues (while adding an interesting twist to the game’s bosses) before the patch goes live on Battle.net.

A new Mystery has been revealed!

– Adventurers of Sanctuary are hereby warned once again, that a new challenge awaits you. Within Diablo’s Bosses, spanning across the world from the ancient Monastery Catacombs to the Throne of Destruction, is where you’ll find what you seek…

Major Bugs

– Fixed an item dupe bug.
– Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.
– Fixed an issue where some players could kill other players while in town (“TPPK”).
– Fixed an issue where some players could disconnect other players when they had too many active states.
– Fixed two issues where players could stack auras in an unintended way.

Minor Bugs

– Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
– The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the window loses and then regains focus.
– Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in windowed mode when it lost focus.
– Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn’t center properly when it was created.
– Fangskin should now properly drop loot in Hell difficulty.
– Fixed an issue where auras were not re-applied to your mercenary after it was resurrected.
– Fixed an issue where if you had two items which provided two auras to a mercenary and you unequipped one, the aura from the remaining item never became active.
– Fixed an issue where the Paladin class runeword ‘Principle’ wasn’t having all of its stats applied properly.

Specific changes/improvements

– Respecialization is now possible! Completing the ‘Den of Evil’ quest will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
– Increased the drop rate of high runes.
– Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
– Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items required for Uber Tristam.
– Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
– Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
– Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
– Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal’s summoned minions no longer give experience.
– Removed Oblivion Knight’s Iron Maiden curse.
– Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
– Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
– When creating a single player game, pressing the ‘Enter’ key now automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
– When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique key: Normal ‘R’, Nightmare ‘N’, and Hell ‘H’.
– The ‘Enter Chat’ Button in the battle.net waiting room is now bound to the ‘Enter’ key.
– Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
– Added new command line parameter ‘-nofixaspect’ which allows users to not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode. This lets the game ‘stretch’ to fill your monitor.
– Added support for ‘-sndbkg’ command line switch. This enables sound in background.
– Added the following aliases for pre-existing command line options, ‘-nosound’, ‘-window’, and ‘-windowed’.

Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes

Amazon

– Immolation Arrow – Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and Immolation effect by 50%.
– Immolation Arrow – Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.
– Immolation Arrow – Increased base duration by 33%.

Assassin
– Dragon Claw – Synergy receives 4% additional damage per point of Claw Mastery.
– Dragon Talon – The bonus to Attack Rating per point has been increased to 35.
– Shadow Master – Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.
– Combo points awarded by combo moves now last 15 seconds, up from 9.

Barbarian

– Whirlwind – Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
– Masteries – Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.

Paladin

– Blessed Hammer – No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.

Druid

– Werebear – Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
– Werebear – Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.
– Shockwave – Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.

Necromancer

– Blood Golem – Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
– Corpse Explosion – Increased base damage dealt from 60% – 100% to 70% – 120% of corpses health.
– Poison Nova – Increased base damage by 15%.

Sorceress

– Firewall – Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and 4% per point of Warmth.
– Blaze – Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
– Hydra – Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
– Hydra – Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.
– Hydra – Reduced cooldown by 25%.

Something tells me it won’t be long now…