Diablo III – The Season of Grandeur Live

A new gameplay season for Blizzard Entertainment’s hack ‘n’ slash action-RPG Diablo III should now be live, full of new challenges, rewards and general quality of life improvements. The new season is accompanied by a special seasonal buff that will let you create powerful builds packed with additional Legendary powers.

You can read all about the new season and check out the latest patch notes right here. A few snippets:

NEW SEASON THEME

Season 16 introduces a brand-new buff to the mix that will change up the way you play. For the duration of Season 16, all Seasonal players will benefit from the legendary power of the Ring of Royal Grandeur. This means you do not need to hunt down or equip the item to benefit from its Set bonus-enabling ability! Bear in mind that this buff does not stack with additional Rings of Royal Grandeur, whether they be equipped directly on your character or via the Jewelry slot in Kanai’s Cube.

For the uninitiated, this means many classes may be able to combine different Class Set bonuses in new ways—or squeeze yet another Legendary power into their favorite builds. Theorycrafters unite!—this is the season to strut your stuff, experiment to your heart’s content, and push the limits of your most perfectly crafted build. While we’ve done our own experimenting, we can’t wait to see what the community comes up with in Season 16!

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SEASON JOURNEY REWARDS

If you’ve been diligently slaying demons for the past few Seasons and reached Conqueror in the Season Journey each time, you’ve surely accrued a few extra stash tabs by now. But players who have not yet earned a total of four stash tabs via the Season Journey can still unlock an additional one by completing the following tasks at the Conqueror tier:

• Guardian of Sanctuary: Finish a level 70 Nephalem Rift on Torment XIII within five minutes
• Gem of My Life: Level three Legendary Gems to level 55
• All I Do IS Win: Complete two Conquests this Season
• In for The Kill: Kill Azmodan at level 70 in under 30 seconds on Torment XIII difficulty
• Money Ain’t a Thang: Slay Greed on Torment XIII difficulty
• Take U There: Reach Greater Rift level 60 Solo
• Power Amplification: Use Kanai’s Cube to augment an Ancient Legendary item with a level 50+ gem
• Cubic Reconfiguration: Use Kanai’s Cube to reforge a Legendary item

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QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

Thanks to player feedback, we’ve focused on a couple of frequently requested changes to improve the overall Diablo experience. This includes minor changes, such as removing Legendary potions from player inventories so that they no longer take up space, but also more significant changes to celebrating end-game loot in Primal Legendaries.

Primal Legendaries were, from the start, a goal largely intended for the segment of our audience pushing themselves to take on the game’s most challenging experiences. As power has increased over time, Primals have become more accessible across the board and we realized they were not celebrated or even as obvious as they should be, considering how ultimate they feel in a build. To this end, we’ve added specially colored beams and a unique mini-map icon to highlight when they drop, as well as shined up their tooltip and border colorations to be more discernible.

Finally, we want to make sure everyone is clear when they can start collecting Primal Legendaries; upon completing your first Greater Rift 70 or higher Solo, you’ll receive an achievement indicating your accomplishment and the Greater Rift boss will be guaranteed to drop a Primal Legendary. This drop is subject to all other loot rules—meaning while there’s a large chance it will be suited for your class, randomness does play a factor.